Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama was born on March 22, 1929, into an affluent merchant family in Matsumoto, Nagano, Japan. Her family life was disturbed as her father was a womanizer who wanted nothing to do with his wife, and her mother was temperamental and physically abusive to her.

With her mother instructing her to spy on her father’s dalliances, she developed a deep-rooted contempt for male sexuality and an aversion to sex that would make a lasting impact on her art.

At the age of 13, Kusama went to work in a defense factory where she sewed parachutes for the Japanese army engaged in the Second World War, which influenced her greatly and opened her eyes to the concepts of personal and creative liberty.

In 1948, despite her parents’ opposition, she enrolled at the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts, where she learned the traditional ‘Nihonga’ painting style of Japan. However, frustrated with the restrictions of the style, she expressed interest in the European and American avant-garde, and participated in several painting exhibitions in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and Matsumoto.

By 1950, Yayoi Kusama had already developed her own distinctive style depicting natural forms in abstraction in watercolor, oil, and gouache, principally on paper. She also commenced using her trademark polka dots on virtually every surface that she could find; floors, walls, canvases, and later household objects, and even on the bodies of nude assistants.

In 1955, she participated in the ‘International Watercolor Exhibition: 18th Biennial’ at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. Attracted by the creative environment in America, she engaged in correspondence with Georgia O’Keeffe, a leading American modernist painter, asking for advice whether she should move to America to pursue her artistic career.

In 1957, at the age of 27, she emigrated to the United States of America and arrived in Seattle, where she had her first American solo exhibition of her paintings at the ‘Zoe Dusanne Gallery’.

In 1958, she moved to New York City, where in 1959, she had a solo exhibition at the ‘Brata Gallery’. Her creation, ‘Infinity Nets’, especially, received very good reviews, including one by Donald Judd, who was an art critic before he became an artist.

In 1960, Kusama participated in her first European exhibition, ‘Monochrome Malerei’ that was held at the ‘Städtisches Museum Schloss Morsbroich’, a museum of modern art in Leverkusen, Germany.

Accumulation No.1’ (1962) is Kusama’s first attempt to transform furniture into objects with sexual themes.

Infinity Mirror Room – Phalli’s Field’ (1965) was the first experiment with mirrors and lights to explore concepts of space.

‘Pumpkin’ (1994) represents her first attempt to create outdoor sculpture.