Event · Chelsea
Fair Warning Shows Yoshitomo Nara's Milky Lake Painting in Chelsea, NYC, Before Nov. 19 Sale
Loïc Gouzer's Fair Warning is showing Yoshitomo Nara's 2011 canvas In the Milky Lake / Thinking One at 534 West 22nd Street in Chelsea from November 6 to 19. The painting goes to auction on November 19 with an estimate of $10–15 million.
By NBT Editors · 2026-11-04
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Fair Warning, the auction app founded by Loïc Gouzer, is putting one of Yoshitomo Nara's largest paintings on view in Chelsea before it sells. In the Milky Lake / Thinking One (2011) will be shown at 534 West 22nd Street from November 6 to 19, and it goes under the hammer on November 19 with an estimate of $10 million to $15 million. ARTnews reports that the space has been designed to resemble a Japanese temple; USA Art News, citing Artnet, says the pop-up includes a Japanese tea room.
The canvas measures 8.5 by 6 feet (102 by 71 inches) and is described as the largest Nara painting ever offered at auction. Its central figure is a child with closed eyes, half-submerged in a pale pool of water. The mood is quiet rather than confrontational, a break from the glaring, defiant children Nara was known for.
Nara painted it in 2011, the year of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which devastated the region of northeastern Japan where he grew up. According to ARTnews, the disaster left him unable to paint for a time, and his work shifted toward more introspective figures when he returned. It was the only major painting he finished that year. It has been in private hands for 14 years and has appeared in his 2012 survey in Japan, the 2021 LACMA retrospective, and shows at the Guggenheim Bilbao, Museum Frieder Burda and the Hayward Gallery.
Gouzer says he pursued the work for a decade and calls it "ground zero" for Nara's meditative phase. Nara's auction record is $24.9 million for Knife Behind Back (2000), set at Sotheby's Hong Kong in 2019. A related work, In the Milky Lake (2012), sold for $12.8 million at Sotheby's Hong Kong in 2023.
Nara's profile in New York is also high this month. David Zwirner opens his first solo show with the gallery on November 5 and it runs through December 12, across 537 West 20th Street and 533 West 19th Street. It's his first major solo exhibition in the city in nearly a decade, with new paintings and drawings, recent sculptures and early works he selected. The opening reception is November 5, 6–8 PM.
(Details are drawn from points that agree across reports by ARTnews, USA Art News.)
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