Yayoi Kusama, the pioneering Japanese avant-garde artist whose polka dots, pumpkins and Infinity Mirror Rooms became instantly recognizable around the world, has died at 97. Kusama died at a hospital in Tokyo on August 14, 2026, with the news publicly announced on August 27 by Yayoi Kusama Inc. and Yayoi Kusama Studio Inc., alongside the Yayoi Kusama Museum and Foundation.
Her journey was anything but ordinary. From childhood hallucinations and a difficult upbringing to New York’s avant-garde scene, provocative performances and eventual global superstardom, Kusama turned intensely personal experiences into an artistic universe built around repetition, infinity and self-expression.
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Yayoi Kusama’s Life, Infinity Mirror Rooms and Rise From Outsider to Global Art Icon
The official announcement described Kusama as an artist whose extraordinary career covered visual art, performance, fiction and poetry. It also emphasized that she continued painting until her final days, remaining committed to artistic creation and to ideas of love, peace and infinity.
“It is with profound sorrow that the passing of Yayoi Kusama at a hospital in Tokyo on August 14, 2026, at the age of 97.”
The official statement added that Kusama had “never set aside her brush” and said her wishes would be carried forward through art that could bring hope and strength to people around the world.
Reports citing Kyodo News identified multiple organ failure as the cause of death. However, Kusama’s official announcement did not disclose a cause. Her funeral was held privately for close family members, while a public memorial is planned for a later date. Meanwhile, KUSAMA’s POP at the Yayoi Kusama Museum continued as scheduled through August 30.
Kusama was born on March 22, 1929, in Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture, into a prosperous family that operated a plant nursery and seed business. Her childhood was difficult, marked by family conflict, an abusive mother and her father’s infidelity.
She also experienced intense hallucinations from a young age. She described seeing flashes of light and patterns of dots and flowers covering objects and spaces, sometimes appearing to speak to her. Instead of allowing those visions to consume her, she transformed them into drawings and paintings.
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“What kept me from ending my life was drawing and making art. That has never changed. It was through discovering my love of art that I have been able to survive and continue living to this day,”
Kusama said in a 2014 interview with Vogue Japan.
Even decades later, those visions remained part of her creative life.
“I still see hallucinations even now. Dots come flying everywhere — on my dress, the floor, things I’m carrying, throughout the house, the ceiling. And I paint them,”
she told reporters in 2017.
During World War II, Kusama was conscripted as a teenager to sew parachutes. She later studied traditional nihonga painting in Kyoto but became frustrated with its restrictions and what she viewed as the conservative nature of Japanese society. At a time when marriage and domesticity were expected paths for women, she chose a different route.
Kusama eventually left Japan for New York in 1957–58. There, she developed the celebrated “Infinity Nets,” enormous abstract paintings filled with seemingly endless loops and repetitive patterns. She also produced soft sculptures covered with stuffed, phallic forms, describing them as a way to confront and neutralize her deep fear and disgust surrounding sex.
Her New York years quickly became more experimental. Kusama staged provocative happenings and body-painting events while becoming involved in anti-war activism, including protests against the Vietnam War. In one especially provocative gesture, she wrote to President Richard Nixon offering to sleep with him if he would end the conflict.
She also argued that some of her ideas were appropriated by better-known male artists, including Andy Warhol, while her own contributions were largely overlooked by mainstream art history at the time.
Then came one of her most unforgettable artistic moves.
In 1966, at the Venice Biennale, Kusama presented Narcissus Garden, an installation featuring 1,500 mirrored balls. Appearing in a gold kimono, she attempted to sell the spheres to visitors for about $2 each under the slogan:
“Your Narcissism For Sale.”
The work became a major part of her legacy and an early example of the immersive and participatory ideas that would later help define her worldwide fame.
Kusama’s New York period was productive but personally difficult. Her mental health struggles intensified, she experienced hospitalizations, and the death of her close companion, artist Joseph Cornell, became another profound loss.
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She returned to Japan in 1973. In 1977, she voluntarily entered a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo that offered art therapy. She remained there for the rest of her life, but this did not end her career. Kusama commuted each day to a nearby studio and continued working intensively. The arrangement provided stability while allowing art to remain the organizing force of her later life.
Her international recognition arrived relatively late. A major turning point came with her 1993 presentation at the Venice Biennale, where mirrored rooms featuring pumpkins introduced her work to a new generation.
Retrospectives followed at major institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Centre Pompidou, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and the Hirshhorn Museum.
The Infinity Mirror Rooms eventually became global cultural phenomena. Their mirrored chambers, packed with lights, dots or objects, created the illusion of endless space. Huge crowds waited in long queues for short viewing slots, while the installations became especially popular during the social-media era because of their highly photogenic environments.
Her pumpkins became just as iconic. The recurring motif originated from a childhood vision before evolving into signature sculptures displayed in museums and public spaces worldwide. Kusama also expanded beyond traditional galleries, collaborating with fashion and design brands, most notably Louis Vuitton.
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Her commercial success was equally remarkable. Her paintings regularly sold for millions of dollars, with Untitled (Nets) from 1959 reaching $10.5 million at auction in 2022. In 2016, Kusama received Japan’s Order of Culture, one of the nation’s highest cultural honors. A dedicated Yayoi Kusama Museum opened in Tokyo in 2017.
Yet even in her 90s, Kusama refused to slow down creatively. She produced major bodies of work including My Eternal Soul and continued exploring repetition, infinity, dots, mirrors and the relationship between the individual and the universe.
Her representatives stressed that she “continued to paint until her final days, never setting aside her brush.” They also said:
“We will carry forward Kusama’s wishes and, through art, continue to bring hope and strength for the future to people around the world.”
Despite becoming an international celebrity and sometimes being described as the world’s most famous living artist, Kusama still viewed herself as an outsider.
“I cannot imagine how I will be classified after my death,” she once said. “It feels good to be an outsider.”
That outsider identity may be one of the clearest threads running through her entire story. The visions that frightened her as a child became recurring artistic motifs. The artist who struggled for recognition in New York eventually became a global cultural icon whose work drew millions of visitors.
David Zwirner, who represented Kusama for many years, paid tribute following her death, saying she “was without a doubt the most famous living artist in the world.” He also highlighted her influence on the histories of minimalism, pop art and performance art.
Kusama moved freely between painting, sculpture, performance, installation, fiction and poetry, creating an artistic universe unmistakably her own. She spent decades outside the mainstream, only to see her work embraced by leading museums and audiences across the globe.
At 97, Yayoi Kusama’s life has ended, but the worlds she created have not. Her mirrors, dots, pumpkins and endless repetitions remain scattered across the planet — lasting reflections of an artist who transformed her most personal experiences into something millions of people could see.
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Disclaimer
This obituary is based on the information and sources provided above, including official statements and reporting from established news organizations. The official announcement did not disclose a cause of death; references to multiple organ failure are attributed to reports citing Kyodo News. Information may be updated if further official details become available.
Sources
- Yayoi Kusama Official Site / Museum announcement
- BBC News — “Japanese polka dot artist Yayoi Kusama dies aged 97”
- Reuters — “Japan’s Yayoi Kusama, who turned hallucinations into art, dies at 97”
- The Guardian — “Yayoi Kusama, Japanese artist who became a global superstar, dies aged 97”
- The New York Times — “Yayoi Kusama, Japanese Pop Artist Known for Polka-Dot Paintings, Dies at 97”
- The Washington Post — “Yayoi Kusama, whose art evoked hallucinatory wonder, dies at 97”
- CNN — “Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama dies at 97”
- The Art Newspaper — Kusama obituary
- Al Jazeera
Featured Image Credit: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 / Garry Knight
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