Punch

At least three distinct people are publicly known by the name or nickname Punch, and none of them is documented as a working auction-market visual artist.

The best-documented is Kazuhiko Kato, known professionally as Monkey Punch, a Japanese manga artist and the creator of Lupin III. Public sources describe him as born May 26, 1937, in Hamanaka, Hokkaido, Japan, and reported dead on April 11, 2019, in Sakura, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, of aspiration pneumonia. This biography is widely reported elsewhere but was not independently reconfirmed within the research compiled for this profile, so it is carried here with reduced confidence pending direct sourcing. He is not documented as a painter or sculptor with an auction market, and his work sits in the comics and animation field rather than the fine-art trade this profile tracks.

A second Punch is Bae Jin-young, a South Korean singer born February 19, 1993, in Seoul, who has recorded under the stage name Punch since 2014 and is best known for television-drama soundtrack songs. Public sources describe her as active, with no indication of death; she appears to be living as of this writing.

A third Punch is Terrence Louis Henderson Jr., an American rapper and president of Top Dawg Entertainment, active since the mid-2000s. No exact birth date or death notice is documented in the sources reviewed for this profile.

None of these three people is confirmed in the sources reviewed to have a track record of works sold at major auction houses.

No verbatim, attributable critical commentary about an artist named Punch, from a named critic in a major outlet, was located in the sources reviewed.

No verifiable all-time auction record for an artist named Punch could be established. The word Punch does surface in auction results as part of a title or subject rather than as an artist credit. James Marshall's painting Portrait of John Punch (Angry Black Man 1646), a title referencing the historical figure John Punch rather than crediting an artist named Punch, sold for USD 7,151,000 against a high estimate of USD 6 million at Christie's New York in November 2025. Separately, a carved and painted Punch puppet figure, depicting the Punch and Judy character rather than crediting an individual maker, sold for USD 187,200 with buyer's premium at a Pook & Pook sale; the exact sale date is not confirmed in the sources reviewed. Neither lot credits an individual artist named Punch, so neither can be recorded as an artist auction record.

Anyone encountering a work attributed to "Punch" should confirm the artist's full legal name and discipline before treating it as a market-tracked fine-art asset. At least three unrelated public figures share this name or nickname, a manga artist, a singer, and a rapper and label executive, and none of them is documented as a fine-art auction-market artist. No catalogue raisonne, gallery representation, or auction record could be confirmed for any of them.