TOKYO (AP) — Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese artist whose polka dots became one of the most recognizable visual signatures in contemporary art, has died, her studio confirmed Thursday. She was 97.
Kusama died Aug. 14 at a hospital in Tokyo, the Yayoi Kusama Studio said in a statement. The studio said she never stopped working, describing how she “continued to paint until her final days, never setting aside her brush, and continued exploration of forever love and eternal soul.”
The studio added: “We will carry forward Kusama’s wishes and, through art, continue to bring hope and strength for the future to people around the world.”
Kusama, long one of Japan’s most respected contemporary artists, exhibited widely across the globe, including at the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
Her work was defined by repetition — nets, swirls, worms, but most often dots. They appeared on her canvases in vibrant psychedelic bursts, as sparkling balls or points of light in immersive installations, and in everyday merchandise from teacups to key chains.
“Polka dots are fabulous,” Kusama told The Associated Press in a 2012 interview, wearing her trademark orange bobcut wig and a polka-dot-covered outfit.
In that same conversation she spoke with childlike directness about her drive: “I want to create a thousand paintings, maybe two thousand paintings, as many as I can draw. I will keep painting until I die.”
Kusama always insisted that her dots reflected her own vision of the world — one covered in spots, a product of hallucinations she said she had experienced since childhood. She spent decades in and out of psychiatric institutions, but her struggles never stopped her. In 1957, she became one of the first Japanese women to move to New York to pursue an art career.
Soft-spoken and shy in person, she was bold and unapologetic in her artistic vision. She stuck with the dot motif for decades and, in her later years, made it accessible to the masses. She collaborated with luxury brands like Louis Vuitton and licensed her illustrations for a range of products, including T-shirts and key chains, with replicas of her likeness appearing in showroom windows and marketing campaigns.
Rise to Fame and Recognition
Her commercial success paralleled her critical acclaim. In 2008, Christie’s auctioned one of her works for $5.8 million. In 2016, she received the Order of Culture, Japan’s highest honor for artists.
After accepting the award, she told reporters she was more committed than ever to her work, saying, “I feel there is little left in my life, but I am now still fighting to the death for my art. I am giving all I have so that many people will continue to be interested in my art, even after I am dead.”
Throughout her career, critics labeled her work as pop, avant-garde, feminist — categories she brushed off as imprecise.
From Misunderstood Youth to New York Pioneer
Born into a middle-class family in Japan, Kusama felt misunderstood from an early age. Her parents wanted her to marry, hoping to buy her kimonos rather than paints and brushes. Determined to break free, she chose America.
When she arrived in New York, the prevailing style was action painting — all dribbles, swooshes and smears — not dots. She faced years of poverty and obscurity, but she kept painting dots.
In the late 1960s, she staged “happening” anti-war performances, placing circles of paper on people’s bodies — and once a horse. Some events led to arrests on obscenity charges, but they brought media attention to her work. During her time in New York, she befriended artists including Andy Warhol, Georgia O’Keeffe and Joseph Cornell, all of whom praised her innovative style.
A Lasting Legacy
Kusama’s body of work includes quirky and grand pieces alike: “Macaroni Girl,” a female figure covered in macaroni, reflecting her fear of food; “The Visionary Flowers,” giant twisted tulips; and “Mirrored Corridor,” a room of mirrors creating the illusion of a dotted phallic landscape.
She also made films and published several novels. Asked where her ideas came from, she told AP she was often surprised by her own work, explaining, “I think, ‘Oh, I drew that? I was thinking that.’”
For all her boldness, Kusama remained a disarming combination of vulnerability and defiance. At one moment she would declare herself “an artistic revolutionary”; the next, she confessed, “I am so afraid, all the time, of everything.”
Her studio’s statement underscored that she persisted to the very end, and that through her art, they intend to carry forward her commitment to offering hope and strength to people around the world.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2026/08/27/yayoi-kusama-renowned-artist-japans-polka-dot-queen-dies-at-97/