"TADANORI YOKOO - CIGAR CLUB", Japanese Contemporary Art Poster, Original Limited Edition Silk Screen 1997, Ultra Rare, Size (c.73 x 103cm)

This poster is ultra rare and is displayed in the world`s most prestigious galleries such as MoMA in New York City. It is very difficult / almost impossible to find in any condition. 

https://www.mplus.org.hk/en/collection/objects/cigar-club-2016193/

Tadanori Yokoo – “CIGAR CLUB” Poster (1997)
Original B1 Size Poster – Intercontinental Trading Co. commission
Catalogue No. 97-41

This is an original 1997 silkscreen print by iconic Japanese graphic artist Tadanori Yokoo, commissioned by Intercontinental Trading Co., Ltd. for promotional use. Executed in Yokoo’s signature collage-driven, high-saturation aesthetic, CIGAR CLUB stands as a surrealist send-up of luxury culture, consumerism, and colonial kitsch.

The composition is a dizzying tableau of disembodied hands gripping oversized cigars, cartoonishly exaggerated lips, tropical figures, gold medallions, and regal portraits—all floating in a pop-collage landscape that shifts from deep black to stark white. With bright accents of red, blue, and metallic gold, the poster evokes both vintage cigar-box labels and mid-century advertising, while simultaneously subverting them.

Much like Yokoo’s other work from the 1990s, CIGAR CLUB fuses commercial graphics with absurdist critique, drawing on Pop Art, Dada, and postmodern appropriation. The choice to render this as a hand-pulled silkscreen rather than offset print lends it a vivid physicality—every detail pops with dense ink and screen texture.

Rarely seen outside of Japan and rarely found in such well-preserved condition, this poster exemplifies Yokoo’s late-career mastery and his lifelong blurring of art, satire, and design.

Japan Poster Shop has acquired a substantial and unique collection of original Tadanori Yokoo posters from one of the most prolific collectors in Japan. This individual has a very colorful life story, having invested and dedicated many decades to his love for Tadanori Yokoo`s vibrant designs.

In today's world, when advanced reproduction techniques and printing methods have been developed, silkscreen printing can be said to be an extremely primitive and imperfect printing method. However, it is precisely because of this primitive imperfection that silkscreen printing has been highly developed.

It is a medium that retains a handcrafted, intimate feel like woodblock prints or lithographs, not found in offset or primary color printing, which are more common printing methods. Such handcrafted printing methods are themselves subcultural, and are therefore suitable as a means of printing posters for subcultural groups, in the sense that the medium is the message.

Please refer to the imagery (both front and back) as this is the exact poster that is for sale. 

We have provided additional imagery as the condition is phenomenal!! 

It is over 28 years old!

It is not a reproduction or a reprint.

Certificate of Authenticity included.

*Please note the price is fixed for this item. It is not included in any of our periodic sales (e.g. Black Friday)!*