Renowned Japanese creator Yayoi Kusama, whose polka-dotted pumpkins and mirrored “infinity rooms” made her one of the world’s most recognisable artists, has died aged 97.
Her studio announced the news on Thursday, saying Kusama had died at a Tokyo hospital on August 14, almost two weeks earlier.
“It is with profound sorrow that [we confirm] the passing of Yayoi Kusama at a hospital in Tokyo on August 14, 2026, at the age of 97,” the statement from Yayoi Kusama Inc and Yayoi Kusama Studio said.
“Throughout an extraordinary lifetime devoted entirely to artistic creation, Kusama pursued an internationally acclaimed career as a pioneering avant-garde artist whose creative practice encompassed visual art, performance, fiction, and poetry.
“She continued to paint until her final days, never setting aside her brush, and continued exploration of forever love and eternal soul.
“We will carry forward Kusama’s wishes and, through art, continue to bring hope and strength for the future to people around the world.”
Born in Matsumoto, Japan, in 1929, Kusama said she began experiencing hallucinations involving flashing lights, dots and flowers during childhood.
Those experiences would go on to shape a unique, and eventually global, career in the arts.
Those visions became central to her paintings, sculptures and immersive installations.
She left Japan for the United States in 1957 and settled in New York the following year, becoming part of the city’s experimental art scene.
Kusama produced paintings, soft sculptures, films and performance pieces, while also staging anti-war “happenings” during the 1960s. Her work received renewed international attention decades later, with her mirrored rooms and brightly coloured sculptures attracting enormous audiences.
After returning to Japan in the 1970s, Kusama voluntarily entered a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo in 1977. She continued living there while travelling to her nearby studio to work.
Her art also became the subject of several major Australian exhibitions across the country.
A sprawling retrospective at Melbourne’s National Gallery of Victoria ran from December 2024 until April 2025 and attracted 570,537 visitors, becoming the most attended ticketed exhibition in the gallery’s history.
Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art hosted Yayoi Kusama: Life is the Heart of a Rainbow from November 2017 until February 2018, while Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art staged Yayoi Kusama: Mirrored Years in 2009.
“I still see hallucinations even now,” Kusama said in 2017.
“Dots come flying everywhere – on my dress, the floor, things I’m carrying, throughout the house, the ceiling. And I paint them.”
Originally published as Polka-dot art icon Yayoi Kusama dies in Tokyo aged 97