Yayoi Kusama, a Japanese avant-garde artist, has died aged 97.
Kusama died in a Tokyo hospital on Aug 14, a statement released by her studio confirmed. The statement did not specify a cause.
“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,” the statement said.
“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.”
From the 1950s to the 2020s, Kusama produced installations, sculptures and vivid paintings, becoming renowned for repetitive patterns, often including polka dots.
Many of her exhibits used mirrors to create optical illusions for visitors – Ina Fassbender/AFP
Kusama was born on March 22, 1929, in the mountainous region of Matsumoto in central Japan.
The youngest of four, Kusama grew up in a prosperous, middle-class family that owned a successful plant nursery and seed farm. Her parents were unimpressed when, at an early age, she began to express an enthusiasm for art.
In primary school, she began drawing to help grapple with hallucinations she had. Her scribblings often included pumpkins, a plant that would feature heavily throughout her career.
After the start of the Second World War, Kusama, aged 15, was conscripted to sew military parachutes in a munitions factory. When the war ended, she defied her parents and went to study painting in Kyoto.
Kusama rose to recognition when she began staging solo exhibitions in the early 1950s. Her work rejected traditional Japanese styles and instead adopted a more European and American avant-garde approach.
Kusama’s ‘obliteration room’ exhibit, shown at Washington DC’s Hirshhorn Museum, was also at the Tate Modern – Joshua Roberts/Reuters
She became fascinated with polka dots and began covering surfaces – walls, floors, objects, canvases and bodies – with them. Kusama referred to the mass of polka dots as “infinity nets” and said they were taken directly from her hallucinations.
After living in Tokyo and France, Kusama swapped Japan for the US at 27. She moved to New York City after correspondence with Georgia O’Keeffe, the American modernist painter. Kusama had stumbled upon O’Keeffe’s paintings in a book and sent her a letter asking for guidance on pursuing her ambitions as an artist.
It was in New York that Kusama produced the majority of her well-known works, including Infinity Nets and sculptures, and established herself as a leader in the avant-garde movement.
One of her recent high-profile works was an inflatable version of herself attached to the Louis Vuitton flagship store in Paris – Benoit Tessier/Reuters
Besides sculpting and painting, Kusama also created performance art. These events were staged demonstrations and used as activism to oppose the Vietnam War, often featuring Kusama painting polka dots on nude performers.
The performances regularly caused a stir and were strongly disapproved of by her family.
Despite her success, her time in New York was plagued by her deteriorating mental health and she was frequently admitted to hospital. In 1972, after the death of her long-term companion Joseph Cornell, she experienced increasing hallucinations, panic attacks and suicide attempts.
In 1977, she admitted herself into a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo that offered art therapy courses. She decided to live at the institution permanently, working each day from her nearby studio for nearly 50 years until her death.
Her infinity room, Brilliance of Life, was shown at the Tate Modern in 2021 – Neil Hall/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
After her return to Japan, she fell into obscurity. It was not until she represented Japan at the Venice Biennale in 1993 – with a dazzling mirrored room filled with small pumpkin sculptures – that she rose to fame again.
Her artwork, marked by bright colour schemes and mirrored installations, became increasingly popular in the era of social media and selfies.
She received a retrospective at London’s Tate Modern in 2012 and at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne in 2025.