Tadanori Yokoo DROOL / よだれ Original Hand-Signed B1 Poster Original 1970 printing ｜ Offset-printed poster on paper ｜ B1 size approx. 103 × 72.8 cm ｜ Hand signed by the artist｜ Very limited, museum-grade rarity

Tadanori Yokoo DROOL / よだれ Original Hand-Signed B1 Poster

Original 1970 printing ｜ Offset-printed poster on paper ｜ B1 size approx. 103 × 72.8 cm ｜ Hand signed by the artist｜ Very limited, museum-grade rarity

Japan Poster Shop had this poster signed by Tadanori Yokoo on 30 April 2026; a Certificate of Authenticity issued by his studio is included. 

Why this piece matters

• This is the original 1970 poster issue of DROOL / よだれ. Museum documentation from The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto records the work as a 1970 offset poster. It is also held in The National Museum of Art, Osaka and other museums.

• It is a long-running image within Yokoo’s oeuvre, rather than a one-off design. The underlying 1966 painting is held by The Tokushima Modern Art Museum, and Yokoo later returned to the motif in Then and Now—Drooling (1991) and again in Drool in Nice (2018), giving the image an unusually sustained life across decades. 

• Its imagery is art-historically rich and immediately recognisable. Tokushima’s curatorial text connects the figure to Elsa Martinelli’s vampire role in Blood and Roses, directed by Roger Vadim, while the background depicts Nice, a place Yokoo had visited the previous year. 

• The image was later selected for Yokoo’s official Stones collaboration. In a 2013 interview, Yokoo explained that “Drool” had once been considered for a 1976 Nice concert poster and was ultimately realised for the 2012 Japanese edition of Crossfire Hurricane. That later use adds a further layer of cultural afterlife, but the present work remains the earlier and more important 1970 original. 

The untold back-story

1. 1966 — the painting. Drool emerged from Yokoo’s first painting exhibition in 1966, at the point where his activity as a graphic designer was beginning to cross decisively into painting. Tokushima’s museum describes the work as part of the early “Pink Girl / Red Lady” imagery, where cinema, travel, memory and provocation are compressed into a single figure. 

2. 1970 — the poster. By 1970 the image had been translated into poster form. Kyoto museum records this work as a 1970 offset poster, and the Hara Museum ARC example from Osaka confirms the large B1-format presence that gives the image its extraordinary impact as a sheet. 

3. 2012 — the later resurrection. More than four decades later, the same image re-entered rock history when Yokoo completed the long-dormant idea of using Drool for an official Stones project. That later issue is a distinct 2012 work (also on our site - sold out).

Artwork & printing

• Offset-printed poster on paper in monumental B1 format. Drool, 1970, offset, 1030 × 728 mm. Additional imagery provided shows the printed in-image date/signature “1966.5.20 Tadanori Yokoo” at lower right, together with a clear hand signature in black marker in the lower margin and an embossed mark at the lower right edge of the sheet.

Collector significance & provenance

Yokoo’s standing in postwar graphic art is exceptionally secure. Japanese museum biography records note that Museum of Modern Art acquired 14 of his posters in 1967 and staged a solo exhibition in 1972. In Osaka, the 2010 exhibition The Complete Posters of Tadanori Yokoo presented more than 800 posters and described the poster format as the core of his artistic practice. The dedicated Yokoo Tadanori Museum of Contemporary Art opened in Kobe in 2012, further underscoring the institutional seriousness of his poster work. 

Condition

This poster presents in excellent, close to near mint condition. Please see additional imagery of the front, reverse and close ups. The colour remains rich and fresh, the image field is notably clean, and the sheet shows only very light handling, faint soft creasing/undulation chiefly in the lower blank margin, and minor evidence of storage visible on the reverse. The overall presentation is exceptionally strong for a large-format original Japanese poster of this date.

Please refer to the supplied imagery, as these are photographs of the exact poster being offered. The work is an original 1970 DROOL / よだれ poster, and it is accompanied by certificates of authenticity. 

1. Over 56 years old—not a reproduction or reprint
2. B1 size (1030 × 728 mm)
3. Signed in black marker by Tadanori Yokoo on 30 April 2026
4. COA from Yokoo Studio included

A museum-grade opportunity to own one of Yokoo’s most well known posters, complete with fresh artist signature and bullet-proof provenance documentation.