The “polka dot queen”, who passed away on August 14, channelled hallucinations and trauma into vibrant art featuring her trademark dots, nets and infinity motifs over a career spanning decades.
“Throughout an extraordinary lifetime devoted entirely to artistic creation, Kusama pursued an internationally acclaimed career as a pioneering avant-garde artist whose creative practice encompassed visual art, performance, fiction, and poetry,” a statement said, confirming her death.
“She continued to paint until her final days, never setting aside her brush, and continued exploration of forever love and eternal soul,” it added.
Born in 1929, the youngest daughter of a wealthy family began producing her signature art aged 10.
“One day, after seeing a tablecloth with a red flower pattern on a desk, I saw the same red flower pattern all over the ceiling, windows and pillars. It filled the room, and covered my body,” she wrote in her autobiography.
Instantly recognisable in her bright red wig and bold spotted outfits, her exuberant work was the expression of a long battle with mental illness.
After studying art in Japan, Kusama moved to the United States in the late 1950s and rose to prominence in New York’s avant-garde scene.
Despite facing discrimination as a Japanese woman, she won fame for bold, big paintings and provocative 1960s “happenings” featuring body painting and polka dots.
Japanese avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama, known as the “polka dot queen”, has died aged 97, a statement from her company said on August 27, 2026. © Philip FONG / AFP
She also launched a fashion line, established a “Church of Self-Obliteration” and styled herself the “High Priestess of Polka Dots” to officiate at a gay wedding.
Returning to Japan in the 1970s, Kusama voluntarily entered a Tokyo psychiatric hospital, where she lived — and worked — for the rest of her long life.
Her pumpkin sculptures — including one on Japan’s “art island” Naoshima –infinity rooms and immersive installations attracted huge crowds and sold for millions of dollars.
‘Visions and hallucinations’
According to her website, “visions and hallucinations” beginning in her childhood engendered her first polka-dot and net-themed drawings, giving her a unique style from the start.
“She formulated a philosophy of art she dubbed ‘self-obliteration’ based on simple motifs of obsessive repetition and proliferation,” it says.
“I’ve had the privilege of viewing her paintings and your works several times. Bold, delicate, beautiful. That world was one I had never known. And to me, she was also someone truly endearing. May you rest in peace,” said one Japanese X user.
Kusama’s company said she died in hospital in Tokyo.
