Yayoi Kusama, the pioneering Japanese avant-garde artist whose immersive infinity mirror rooms and obsessive polka-dot motifs captivated a global audience, has died at the age of 97. According to a statement on her official studio website, the artist passed away in a Tokyo hospital on August 14, leaving behind a legacy that bridged traditional fine art, 1960s counterculture, and the modern digital era.
- The Milestone: Yayoi Kusama passed away at 97 in a Tokyo hospital on August 14, as announced by her studio.
- The Artistic Legacy: Known worldwide for her psychedelic colors and infinity mirror rooms, Kusama turned lifelong hallucinations into a celebrated global aesthetic.
- The Record-Breaking Reach: Beyond her New York breakthrough, her recent retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria became the most visited exhibition in Australian history by April 2025, drawing over 500,000 attendees.
From Childhood Hallucinations to the Global Avant-Garde
Born in Matsumoto, Japan, in 1929, Kusama endured a difficult childhood marked by an abusive mother and philandering father. To cope with hallucinations where flowers and patterns seemed to swarm and talk to her, she began drawing what she saw. That coping mechanism evolved into a lifelong artistic vocabulary. After studying traditional nihonga painting in Kyoto and growing frustrated with its limitations, Kusama left Japan for New York in 1958.
In the American art capital, she fell in with artists like Donald Judd and forged her “infinity net” paintings—vast fields of impastoed polka dots. While Kusama staged provocative “body festivals” and anti-war activities, she maintained that many of her ideas from this period were appropriated by white male artists while she was written out of art history.
Commercial Triumphs and Museum Blockbusters
In 2014, her canvas White No 28 sold for $7.1 million at auction, a record at the time for a living female artist. Her dazzling, mirror-lined infinity rooms became cultural touchstones, drawing a huge audience in the age of the social media selfie.
A massive immersive retrospective hosted by the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne drew more than 500,000 visitors by April 2025 and became the most visited exhibition in Australian history. Public installations like her sculpture Flowers that Bloom in the Cosmos outside the Art Gallery of New South Wales ensured her work remained woven into the daily urban fabric.
| Year / Period | Milestone Event | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| 1958 | Relocation to New York | Left Japan to break away from traditional constraints, launching her international avant-garde career. |
| 1962 | First Infinity Net Sale | Sold her early dot paintings to fellow artists Frank Stella and Donald Judd for $75. |
| 2014 | Auction Record | White No 28 fetched $7.1 million, setting a record for a living female artist at the time. |
| 2025 | Melbourne Retrospective | Attracted over 500,000 visitors, becoming the most visited exhibition in Australian history. |
Living and Working Under the Infinite Sign
Following years of intense creative output and mounting personal stress in the United States, Kusama returned to Japan and voluntarily entered a mental hospital around 1977, where she lived for decades while being driven to her nearby studio each morning. She never stopped painting, utilizing her craft as an enduring tool for survival and self-obliteration.
“I still see hallucinations even now,” Kusama once reflected in 2017, detailing how dots continued to cascade across her surroundings.
