Yayoi Kusama, the acclaimed Japanese avant-garde artist best known for her giant pumpkin sculptures and “Infinity Mirror Rooms,” has died at the age of 97.
According to a statement released on August 27 by her company, Kusama passed away nearly two weeks ago at a hospital on August 14.
Kusama’s art is recognizable worldwide by her repeated dot patterns, which she has practiced since the beginning of her career. However, it took some time for the art world to embrace her work. And despite moving to New York in the 1950s, then the center of pop art, she remained relatively unknown. She returned to Japan two decades later, choosing instead to shy away from public life. She then checked herself into a psychiatric hospital, where she lived voluntarily while continually producing art that ultimately led to global recognition in the later decades of her life, starting in the ‘80s.
Earlier this year, Museum Ludwig in Cologne exhibited more than 300 of Kusama’s work in what is believed to be one of the biggest showcase of the artist’s work. “In my more than 70 years as an artist, I have always been in awe of the wonder of life,” the artist said on the occasion of the exhibit. “More than anything, this strong sense of the life force in artistic expression is what has supported me and gave me power to overcome feelings of depression, hopelessness, and sadness. I have been guided by my belief in this power.”
Her work has been shown in galleries the world over, from the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, and the Tate Modern in London. Tourists from all over the world have flocked to Japan to see her pumpkin sculptures firsthand like the one on Naoshima Island, as well as in her eponymous museum, the Yayoi Kusama Museum, in Tokyo.
“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 continued.
“She continued to paint until her final days, never setting aside her brush, and continued exploration of forever love and eternal soul.”
