Kazuo Shiraga, the value of his surprising works

If you own a work by or after the artist Kazuo Shiraga, and would like to know its value, our state-approved experts and auctioneers will offer you their appraisal services. Our specialists will carry out a free appraisal of your work, and provide you with a precise estimate of its current market value. Thereafter, if you wish to sell your work, we will guide you towards the best possible arrangement to obtain an optimal price.

Rating and value of works by Kazuo Shiraga 

Practicing what is known as performative painting, Kazuo Shiraga is a Japanese artist who is known to have participated in the avant-garde Gutai art movement. He produced paintings, watercolor drawings, prints and sculptures, of which we have few examples. The prices at which his works are auctioned range between 100 and 7 600 000€. In 2014, an abstract painting entitled " Kaien " lined with blue cameos and enhanced with a few red touches sold for €2 068 000.

Order of value from a simple work to the most prestigious

Style and technique of Kazuo Shiraga 

To bring his abstract paintings to life, Shiraga flies over the canvas, his feet coated with paint, rocking back and forth in a pendulum motion, and smears the canvas on the floor with his footprints. While he admires the aesthetic rendering of Jackson Pollock's dripping, Shiraga gives texture and depth to his splashes and swirls. In so doing, he explores the relationship between the body and paint.

" The Japanese man who painted with his feet " 

 Kazuo Shiraga was born in Amagasaki in 1924. Under the guidance of his father, he developed a passion for painting from an early age. He began training as a painter at the age of thirteen and discovered an encouraging talent. However, in 1944, Shiraga was forced to abandon his brushes to go and fight the Allies in the Second World War to serve his homeland. The climax of the war in Japan came when the country was set on fire by the explosion of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

After this seismic catastrophe, Shiraga continued his artistic studies at the Kyoto Professional Painting School and returned safely to his canvases. In a grief-stricken Japan trying to rebuild, Shiraga nevertheless escaped death from severe pneumonia. In 1952, he founded the Zero-Kai movement with his friends Saburô Murakami, Akira Kanayama and Atsuko Tanaka.

These four artists displayed a libertarian style that played with conventions, approaching an ever more corporeal and conceptual painting.

How Shiraga made his mark 

Originally, Shiraga painted with a palette knife, then transited to using his fingernails, and finally, he found his singular style by painting canvases with his feet.

In 1955, the Zero-Kai movement took the name " Gutai ", a term derived from "gutaiteki" in Japanese, which can be translated as "concrete". This paradigm shift can be seen as a refusal to be affiliated with abstract art. While Shiraga paints with his own body, we now know where the Cohen brothers got their inspiration for the Maude Lebowski character. Shiraga was spotted by French critic Michel Tapié during an exhibition, who suggested he join the movement to which he belonged, Art Informel. This meeting between the two artists, each overseeing the artistic movement to which they belonged, was to be decisive in the spread and renown of Gutaï on the international art scene.

He also organized mud jousts, always in this desire to mark his supports with his bodily imprints. What counts for Shiraga is less the final result of the work than the path and process of creation, the essence of his art, which becomes a form of catharsis. In 1971, Shiraga withdrew to a Buddhist monastery, which had a profound influence on his painting, tinting it with a resolutely spiritual tone. He retains his unique technique of painting with his feet, but no longer takes to the stage, abandoning the performance and public scene that characterized Gutai. He now paints at home with his wife.

How to recognize Kazuo Shiraga's signature

Shiraga signs most of the time at the bottom right of his paintings, sometimes in Japanese character, sometimes in Western character and sometimes even both.

How to find out the value of a work by Kazuo Shiraga

If you happen to own a work by Kazuo Shiraga, don't hesitate to request a free appraisal via our form on our website. An auctie's member will contact you promptly with an estimate of the value of your work, as well as providing you with all the relevant information. If you are considering selling your work, you will also be accompanied by our specialists in order to benefit from alternatives for selling it at the best possible price.