Tadanori Yokoo

Tadanori Yokoo (b. 1936, Japan) is one of the defining figures of postwar Japanese graphic design. Working from the early 1960s, Yokoo developed a visual language that compressed cinema, theatre, folklore, advertising, violence, eroticism, and postwar Japanese popular culture into densely layered printed fields. His posters and silkscreens from the 1960s and 1970s are among the most significant works in the history of graphic art, held in major collections including MoMA, New York.

Yokoo’s work circulated through multiple formats — poster, silkscreen, book cover, postcard, catalogue — each representing a different stage in the public life of an image. Items in this section include original printed matter, postcards, and ephemera in which Yokoo’s work appears as reproduced image, published object, or circulated support.

  • Original postcard after Tadanori Yokoo, The Ballad to a Severed Little Finger, 1966 silkscreen, published by XARAVEL Co., Ltd., Kyoto, after Yakuza Shobo Publishers. 10.5 × 15 cm, colour offset on card stock. Dense layered composition: blue wave ground, tattooed male figure holding sword, blue hand with four fingers above, two circular portrait medallions, Japanese text columns, red blood-drop motifs, and bold title text in Japanese. Vivid colour; light surface marks. Reverse of Tadanori Yokoo postcard, The Ballad to a Severed Little Finger, XARAVEL Co., Ltd., Kyoto. White card stock with printed caption block upper left: TADANORI YOKOO / 'THE BALLAD TO A SEVERED LITTLE FINGER' / Yakuza Shobo Publishers / 1966 103 × 72.8cm Silkscreen. Lower left: © XARAVEL Co. Ltd., 94 Nishioji-cho Shinjyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan. 'POST CARD' printed vertically at right edge. Light age toning and handling marks.

    TADANORI YOKOO — The Ballad to a Severed Little Finger, Postcard, XARAVEL, 1966

    TADANORI YOKOO — The Ballad to a Severed Little Finger, Postcard, XARAVEL, 1966