Yayoi Kusama
Japanese artist known for polka dots, infinity nets, soft sculptures, and happenings.
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via Wikipedia: Yayoi Kusama · see source
Yayoi Kusama, a Japanese artist born in 1929, created works across sculpture, installation, painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, and fiction.[1][2] According to Sotheby's 2023 list, she ranked #19 among the top 50 artists and was recognized as one of Japan's most significant artists and a top-selling female artist globally.[1] On 14 August 2026, at a Tokyo hospital, Kusama died from multiple organ failure at age 97, with her death announced on 27 August.[3]
Life and work
Yayoi Kusama was born on 22 March 1929 in Matsumoto, Nagano, into a family of merchants who owned a plant nursery and seed farm.[2] She began drawing pictures of pumpkins in elementary school and created artwork from hallucinations she experienced.[2] In 1977, she checked herself into a psychiatric hospital in Shinjuku, Tokyo, and took up permanent residence there for the rest of her life.[4] In 1958, Kusama relocated to New York City and became active in the 1960s avant-garde scene, particularly within pop art.[5]
Starting in 1963, Kusama expanded her Mirror/Infinity rooms series, constructing rooms lined with mirrored glass that held numerous neon-colored balls.[6] Kusama went back to Japan in 1973; there, she fell into a depression that prevented her from working and led to another suicide attempt.[7][4] From a studio located a short distance from the hospital, she kept producing artworks.[4][8]
What the cited sources add
A BBC article notes that Kusama is the biggest-selling female artist in the world and that her mother forced her to spy on her father's infidelity.[9] The same source states that Kusama created the world's first mirrored-room environment in 1965 at the Castellane Gallery in New York.[9] A Hero magazine article explains that Kusama's phallic shapes were important because she felt great anxiety around sex and intimacy, repeating the motif as a form of control.[10] The Hero article also reports that Kusama has resided in a mental health facility since the 1970s, leaving daily to walk to her nearby studio to work.[10]
According to the MoMA account, after Kusama departed New York she was largely overlooked as an artist until a series of retrospectives in the late 1980s and 1990s revived her international profile.[11]
References
- Wikipedia, "Yayoi Kusama" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Yamamura, "Yayoi Kusama : inventing the singular", MIT Press, 2015; Sotheby's, "The top 50 artists", Sothebys.com, 11 December 2023 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Yayoi Kusama" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Yayoi Kusama", Encyclopedia Britannica; Farah Nayeri (14 February 2012), Bloomberg.; "Yayoi Kusama Biography, Life & Quotes", The Art Story; Pound, "Yayoi Kusama's extraordinary survival story", BBC, 26 September 2018; Butler, "WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution", MIT Press, 2007, p. 257; Farah Nayeri (14 February 2012), Bloomberg. (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Yayoi Kusama" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "草間彌生の逝去のお知らせ", Yayoi Kusama Official Site, 27 August 2026; "Avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama, Japan's "polka dot queen," dies at 97", KYODO NEWS, 27 August 2026; "Avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama passes away at 97; internationally acclaimed for her works depicting polka dots and netting", Chunichi, 28 August 2026 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Yayoi Kusama" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Kusama: Infinity (2018). kusamamovie.com; Grishin, "'The only method I have found that relieved my illness is to keep creating art': remembering Yayoi Kusama", The Conversation, 27 August 2026; "公益財団法人 神経研究所附属 晴和病院"; Chappo, "The Stunning Story of the Woman Who Is the World's Most Popular Artist", Observer, 6 April 2015; Gipson, "Women's work: from feminine arts to feminist art", Frances Lincoln, 2022; McDonald, "Points of no return", The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 February 2005; "Art Review", 2007 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Yayoi Kusama" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Griselda, "Psychoanalysis and the image: transdisciplinary perspectives", Blackwell Publishers, 2006, p. 127–160; "Yayoi Kusama, Harry Shunk, János Kender. The Anatomic Explosion, New York. 1968", The Museum of Modern Art; "Yayoi Kusama, Harry Shunk, János Kender. Mirror Performance, New York. 1968", The Museum of Modern Art (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Yayoi Kusama" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Queensland Art Gallery, Queensland. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Yayoi Kusama" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Kusama: Infinity (2018). kusamamovie.com (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Yayoi Kusama" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Butler, "WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution", MIT Press, 2007, p. 257; Holland Cotter (12 July 2012), "Vivid Hallucinations from a Fragile Life – Yayoi Kusama at Whitney Museum of American Art" The New York Times. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Pound, "Yayoi Kusama's extraordinary survival story", BBC, 26 September 2018. facts only, no text reused. bbc.com
- "Life, death and polka dot pumpkins: Yayoi Kusama at Guggenheim Bilbao", Hero. facts only, no text reused. hero-magazine.com
- "Yayoi Kusama", MoMA. facts only, no text reused. web.archive.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Yayoi Kusama (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Yayoi Kusama (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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