LEE U-FAN Untitled-5

• LOT

  1845

• Artist

  LEE U-FAN ( 1936 - )

• Estimate

  2,000,000 - 2,800,000 86,957 - 121,739 100,000 - 140,000 400,000 - 560,000 12,500 - 17,500

  JPY RMB HKD TWD USD

• Result

  Members only

• Details

  charcoal on paper　framed　1988
  signed and dated
  accompanied by a certificate of sales issued by Tokyo Gallery
  Provenance: Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo
  Publication: "Three People Who Graduated from Horakuma School" Monogatari Culture Association, 1988
  
  LEE U-FAN is an internationally acclaimed artist and a leading figure of the Mono-ha movement. He came to Japan in 1956 to study philosophy at Nihon University, where he absorbed a wide range of Eastern and Western thought and literature and played a pivotal role in the development of the Mono-ha movement. He had solo exhibitions at some of the world's most prominent museums, including the Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA, in 2011 and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Metz, France, in 2019. In 2010, he opened the Lee Ufan Museum in Naoshima, Japan, in collaboration with Ando Tadao. He also established the Space LeeUFan Gallery on the grounds of the Busan Municipal Museum of Art.
  Major Collections: The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; Guggenheim Museum; Centre Pompidou; Tate Gallery; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; National Museum of Art, Osaka; National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto.
  
  
  Miyazawa Kenji's fairy tale "Three People Who Graduated from Horakuma School" was published in 1988 as part of the Miyazawa Kenji Fairy Tale Series, with Lee Ufan responsible for the artwork and book design. Centered on three protagonists—a spider, a slug, and a raccoon dog—the story follows them as they study at the Cave Bear School and subsequently set out on their own paths. Told with humor and satire, the allegorical tale explores themes of competition, desire, and relationships with others.
  The series was conceived as a project bringing Miyazawa's literary world into dialogue with contemporary art, and featured leading artists of the time, including Takamatsu Jiro, Suga Kishio, and Nakanishi Natsuyuk.
  Rather than depicting the story's scenes or characters in a representational manner, Lee U-fan responded to Miyazawa's literary world through his distinctive abstract language of line and empty space. The intersecting lines seen in the present work may be understood as evoking the competition, desire, and tensions between individuals portrayed in the story. It is a work in which Miyazawa's poetic vision and Lee's unique visual language converge.
  
  38.0×56.7cm
  (15 × 22 ⅜ in.)　

• Organizer

  Jo's Auction

• Auction

  Jo’s Auction Autumn Auction of Art Works 2026

• Catalog

  Contemporary Art/Modern&Post-War Art

• Date

  2026/10/21