Artist of the Day, December 2, 2025 : Tadanori Yokoo, a Japanese graphic artist (#2433)

One of the few surviving members of the first generation of Pop international artists, Tadanori Yokoo (1936) has left an indelible mark on the aesthetic and cultural exchanges between Japan, Europe, and the U.S. since the 1960s.  Appropriating and intermixing Western and traditional symbols, Yokoo’s subversive poster designs were instrumental in the development and dissemination of a new iconography for post-war Japan. 

Moving to Tokyo in 1960 to pursue his passion for painting and a career in graphic design, Yokoo quickly became a rising figure within the Japanese avant-garde. Working across disciplines and continents, Yokoo counted many renowned creative minds –– within Japan, such as the poet Yukio Mishima, and in his visits to New York, figures such as the artist Jasper Johns –– among his many points off connection.

 By 1972, Yokoo had achieved widespread international recognition and was exhibiting widely at a number of prestigious institutions including a solo exhibition, Graphics of Tadanori Yokoo, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. During this time, his commercial work included designing album covers for Miles Davis and Santana, among others, while maintaining a private practice of painting.

 Yokoo’s work has been the subject of countless solo exhibitions and is held in the permanent collections of key institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Fondation Cartier, Paris; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.  Since albertz benda opened in 2015, the gallery has presented two exhibitions of Yokoo’s paintings spanning from the 1980s to the present.

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Tadanori Yokoo

16th Exhibition Of Japan Advertising Artists Club, 1956-66

Vocal Group Niji, 1964

Smiling mouth with moustache, Recital at Kyoto Festival Hall, 1964

B-1/B-2, 1964

Poster, 1965

Made in Japan, 1965

The City And Design, 1965

Asahi Beer, 1966

Koshimaki-Osen, 1966

Poetry By Mutsuo Takahashi, 1966

Takarazuka, Grand Revue, 1966

The Rose-Colored Dance, A La Maison De M. Civecawa, 1966

Yukio Mishima, The Aesthetics of End, 1966

Ballad Dedicated To An Amputated Little Finger, 1967

Design (Japan) 108, 1968

Design (Japan) 109, 1968

Design (Japan) 110, 1968

Poster for a Happening, 1968

This is America, 1968

Yakuza Films: One Movement of Postwar Japanese Cinema, 1968

Yui Shôsetsu, 1968

Koshimake Osen, Fire in a Long-sleeved Kimono, 1969

Graphis 171, 1974 cover

Special issue of story 100th anniversary special edition, 1974

Graphis 188, 1976 cover

Musée De La Publicité, 1983

Are You Ready for Foods, advertisement for a Chinese restaurant? 1989

Idea Special Issue, 1995

Angel, 1996

Idea 342, 2010