“The fact is I have never once said that I’ve been influenced by Japanese manga,” the artist Yoshitomo Nara told ARTnews in 2017. “For a very long time I have created my art from a spiritual point of view. It is filled with religious and philosophical considerations.” Nara is renowned for his seemingly simple paintings of spectral children isolated in colored voids. In fact, these affectless faces transmit powerful emotion and pathos. Nara works in many genres, but the Albertina focuses on his drawings, the foundation of his practice. The show includes impromptu works sketched fast on envelopes, restaurant napkins, and exhibition invitations. —Laura Jacobs