Yayoi Kusama, Japan’s avant-garde queen of polka dots, dies aged 97
The artist, who spent decades in a psychiatric hospital while creating works that became among the most valuable ever produced by a female artist, died in Tokyo on 14 August.
Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese avant-garde artist whose polka-dotted pumpkins and infinity mirror rooms captivated millions around the world, has died at the age of 97. The artist, who had voluntarily lived in a psychiatric hospital for decades, passed away in a Tokyo hospital on 14 August, her company announced. A statement described a lifetime “devoted entirely to artistic creation” and noted that she “continued to paint until her final days, never setting aside her brush”.
Born in 1929 in the rural town of Matsumoto in central Nagano prefecture, Kusama experienced hallucinations from childhood—embers and flashing patterns that would later define her visual language. “One day, after seeing a tablecloth with a red flower pattern on a desk, I saw the same red flower pattern all over the ceiling, windows and pillars,” she wrote in her autobiography. Her parents did not support her early studies in Kyoto, and she was later told that her artistry brought shame to her conservative family.
Kusama moved to New York in the late 1950s, where she sought to make her mark in a masculine-dominated art scene. Her exhibitions of phallic sculptures and frequent displays of nudity caused a stir but were poorly received. In 1965, she unveiled the first of her “Infinity Mirror Rooms”—works in which mirrors and lights create seemingly endless, immersive spaces that would later attract millions of visitors. Yet she grew distressed as her ideas were copied by or “inspired” her male contemporaries, including Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and Lucas Samaras, whose works appeared in more prestigious galleries.
Feeling dejected and distraught, Kusama returned to Japan and checked herself into a psychiatric facility where doctors were interested in art therapy. That secure environment allowed her to focus on creating art for the remainder of her life. Through the 1970s and early 1980s, she produced uncharacteristically dark collages embracing natural life cycles, before a dramatic resurgence. In 1993, she became Japan’s first solo artist to represent the country at the Venice Biennale—twenty-seven years after she had turned up uninvited and laid out 1,500 mirror balls on the ground. The exhibition’s roaring success transformed her reception both at home and abroad.
In her later decades, Kusama became one of the world’s most recognisable artists and a global cultural icon, despite having been largely overlooked for much of her career. Her bold floral shapes, shiny steel orbs and iconic pumpkins—which she said “speak to me” and embody “a sense of stability”—became sought-after backdrops for selfies in the age of social media. In 2001, she received the Asahi Prize, recognising outstanding cultural contributions in Japan. One of her paintings fetched about $10.5m at auction in 2022, making her works among the highest-earning for a female artist.
Collaborations with luxury brands, including Louis Vuitton, and major museum exhibitions followed. Yet Kusama remained devoted to her art as a means of conveying her vision of the world. Her company’s statement concluded: “We will carry forward Kusama’s wishes and, through art, continue to bring hope and strength for the future to people around the world.”