Japanese contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama, renowned worldwide for her immersive infinity rooms and vibrant polka-dot motifs, died August 14 at a hospital in Tokyo at the age of 97, according to her studio.
Yayoi Kusama, the celebrated avant-garde icon whose distinctive polka-dot paintings, sculptures, and mirrored installations captivated audiences across the globe, passed away at the age of 97 at a hospital in Tokyo, the Yayoi Kusama Studio announced. While the studio did not specify a cause of death, they noted that the artist maintained her creative dedication until her final moments.
Yayoi Kusama Studio
The studio added in its public statement, She continued to paint until her final days, never setting aside her brush, and continued exploration of forever love and eternal soul.
The statement continued, We will carry forward Kusama’s wishes and, through art, continue to bring hope and strength for the future to people around the world.
Her death closes a career spanning decades of bold artistic output, recognized internationally by major institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the Museum Ludwig in Germany.
A Lifetime Defined by Hallucinatory Visions and Polka Dots
Kusama consistently maintained that her trademark motifs—ranging from netting, swirls or worms to the ubiquitous dots dancing proudly on her canvases, or as sparkling balls or dots of light in her installations—originated from hallucinations she said she had from childhood. Despite spending time in and out of psychiatric institutions for decades, she broke barriers early in her career. In 1957, she became one of the first Japanese women to go to New York to pursue her art.
Arriving during the height of the action painting movement characterized by dribbles, swooshes and smears rather than dots, Kusama endured years of poverty and obscurity. Yet she persisted with her dot-centric style, staging “happening” anti-war performances in the late 1960s where she put circles of paper on people’s bodies, and once a horse, which got some people arrested for obscenity but helped get media attention for her art.
While in New York, she befriended artists like Andy Warhol, Georgia O’Keeffe and Joseph Cornell, who praised her innovative spirit.
Global Recognition and Late-Career Fame
Although categories like pop, avant-garde, feminist, just to name some of the categories thrown at her, were used to describe her work, Kusama brushed most of them off as not quite representative of her art. Born in a middle-class family where her parents wanted her to simply get married and wanted to buy her a kimono, not paints and brushes, she knew she had to get away and chose America. In her later years, as the times caught up with her art, she enjoyed fame. Her signature aesthetic expanded into commercial collaborations, signing on with fashion brands like Louis Vuitton as well as other licensed products like teacups, T-shirts and key chains with her illustrations, including replicas of her likeness that were used in show windows and other marketing.
Market demand for her work surged significantly in the 21st century. In 2008, Christie’s auctioned her work for $5.8 million. In 2016, she won the most prestigious award Japan gives its artists, the Order of Culture.
Yayoi Kusama
Upon receiving the award, she told reporters she was more determined than ever to pursue her art, stressing that the sincerity and devotion she had demonstrated in her personal life were crucial parts of her artistic legacy. I feel there is little left in my life, but I am now still fighting to the death for my art,
she said. I am giving all I have so that many people will continue to be interested in my art, even after I am dead.
In a 2012 interview with The Associated Press, appearing in her signature orange bob wig and polka dot attire, she stated, Polka dots are fabulous,
and added in her childlike but matter-of-fact tone, I want to create a thousand paintings, maybe two thousand paintings, as many as I can draw. I will keep painting until I die.
Tributes From the International Arts Community
News of her passing prompted an immediate wave of grief and tributes from cultural institutions, museums, and fellow creators across the globe.
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