Where to buy Takashi Murakami Prints?, by Strange Al on May 10, 2014 21:35:33 GMT 1, Coincidentally, I too have recently been hunting Murakami flower prints. In fact, my preferred print was the exact same "Flower" (2011), which you're now after.

Now that Baltic have sold out of their Murakami stock and Hidari in Berlin has closed, Galerie Perrotin is the only primary source in Europe I could find. Though, all of the Murakami prints at Perrotin are substantially more expensive than from source at Hidari in Tokyo. Hidari Tokyo still have the print you want at 72,000 Yen (at least they did back in March). The difficulty of course is that you can only buy at the gallery in person. What makes it even more complicated is that they don't hold the stock there, so you have to pay in person and then have it shipped to a Japanese address. A friend of mine popped in for me and bought me a flower print - I ultimately opted for another version (which was even cheaper). Though, some 8 weeks later he has yet to receive it in Japan. It's a long wait, particularly as he then still has to post it on to the UK.

Given how cheap the prints are from source (they start at just over £200), my feeling is that a lot of the Japanese eBay sellers are selling legit prints. If you've got a Japanese address and don't mind waiting, it's easy money for them. The question of course is working out which sellers are legit and actually already have the prints in hand. It's a bit of a lottery.

As an alternative and given the current dollar exchange rates (as mentioned above), it's worth getting in touch with Giant Robot Store in LA (http://secure.giantrobot.com/). I think they're another official source and may work out cheaper than Perrotin even if you factor in import duties. They used to hold a lot of stock (beyond what is listed on the site), so worth emailing them. I'm pretty sure they had the print you're after not long ago and were asking around the £650 mark.

Otherwise, keep asking on the forum and half an eye on general contemporary print auctions. I've seen a fair few Murakamis come up over the years and selling at very reasonable prices. After all, there are plenty about.