A rare and significant opportunity for collectors to acquire a major work by a living contemporary artist is on the horizon. Yoshitomo Nara's large-scale painting, In the Milky Lake / Thinking One, will be auctioned by Loïc Gouzer's Fair Warning app on November 19 with an estimate of $10 million to $15 million. Measuring 8.5 feet by 6 feet, it is the largest Nara painting to appear at auction. The work has been in private hands for 14 years and will be exhibited in Chelsea at 534 West 22nd Street, a space designed to resemble a Japanese temple, from November 6–19. Nara painted the work in 2011, a year marked by the devastating Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan, where he grew up. The disaster left him unable to paint for some time, and when he returned to his studio, his art underwent a significant shift. His familiar cast of angry, sometimes menacing children gave way to quieter, more introspective figures. In the Milky Lake / Thinking One was the only major painting he completed that year. The painting has since appeared in numerous museum exhibitions, including his 2012 survey in Japan, his 2021 retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and more recent shows at the Guggenheim Bilbao, Museum Frieder Burda, and Hayward Gallery in London. Nara also included it in his 2015 book Self-Selected Works: Paintings. The sale will take place alongside the November New York auctions from Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips, which feature many big-ticket lots by historical, blue-chip artists. Gouzer, who founded Fair Warning after leaving Christie’s, believes collectors may be ready to look at contemporary art differently. This sale presents a unique opportunity for collectors to acquire a significant work by a living artist, marking a shift in the art market’s focus.