Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, one of the most influential figures in contemporary art, died on August 14 at a hospital in Tokyo aged 97.
Her passing was confirmed in a statement published on her official website, which provided no details regarding the cause of death. According to a report by news agency journalist María Roldán, the statement noted that Kusama continued painting until her final days, never setting down her brush, while continuing to explore eternal love and the immortal soul.
Native to the mountainous region of Nagano, northwest of Tokyo, the avant-garde creator became world-famous for transforming the recurring polka dot hallucinations of her youth into a defining global signature of psychedelic and pop art.
Early life and artistic origins
Born in the city of Matsumoto on March 22, 1929, Kusama grew up in a wealthy merchant family. She began painting around the age of ten, developing an early obsession with repeating patterns of polka dots, nets, and arches across watercolors, pastels, and oil paintings.
Her childhood was marked by severe psychological distress, including hallucinations, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and suicidal tendencies. Kusama recounted on multiple occasions that she suffered physical and psychological abuse from her mother, who destroyed her artwork and forced her to spy on her unfaithful father.
Kusama harnessed this personal trauma to fuel her artistic vision, treating art as a vital survival mechanism and form of therapy. Her vibrant colors and relentless dot patterns eventually established her as a major global figure in psychedelic and avant-garde art.
Avant-garde breakthrough in New York
Kusama initially trained in Nihonga, a traditional Japanese painting style established in the late 19th century, studying at the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts in western Japan. Seeking to escape the rigid formalisms of Japan and build a career among international avant-garde movements, she emigrated to the United States in the late 1950s.
In New York City, Kusama expanded her work into immersive installations, large-format paintings, and sculptures featuring mirrors and electric lights. She also experimented with body painting, fashion design, filmmaking, and mass media.
During her time in the United States, Kusama gained prominence for her anti-war activism, staging public artistic protests in locations such as Central Park against the Vietnam War. Her anti-war stance was deeply shaped by World War II, having been 16 years old when atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Return to Japan and lasting legacy
Kusama achieved significant critical success in the United States and influenced major contemporary peers, including pop art figures Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg. However, worsening mental health led her to return to Japan in 1973.
Back in Tokyo, she continued to produce and exhibit art while publishing several novels and poetry anthologies. In 1990, Kusama voluntarily checked herself into a mental health institution, where she chose to live while continuing to create artwork across various artistic mediums.
Her celebrated creations include famous pieces such as Narcisus Garden (1966), Phallic Girl (1967), Tulips of Shangri-la (2004), Dots Obsession (2008), Gleaming Lights of the Soul (2008), A Bouquet of Love I Saw in the Universe (2012), Ascension of Polka Dots (2013), and Repetitive Vision (2017). Her most extensive painting series, My Eternal Soul, created between 2009 and 2021, comprised approximately 900 individual works.
Fashion collaborations and global honors
Kusama also made a major impact on architecture and fashion. In 2012, she designed the exterior of the Louis Vuitton corporate building in New York as a collaborative project, adapting her trademark polka dots into highly sought-after handbags for the French luxury fashion house.
Her iconic giant spotted pumpkin sculpture, located near the coast at the Benesse Art Site on Naoshima island, remains one of the primary landmarks of contemporary art in Japan. In 2014, she opened her own museum, the Yayoi Kusama Museum, in Tokyo.
Her works have been exhibited at leading art institutions worldwide, including the Venice Biennale, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Tate Modern in London, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
Over her long career, Kusama earned numerous prestigious honors, including the Asahi Prize, Japan's Order of Arts and Letters, and the National Lifetime Achievement Award of the Order of the Rising Sun. In 2006, she became the first woman to win the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association, one of the world's most prestigious international art awards, and in 2016 she received Japan's Order of Culture.
