Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese artist who gained worldwide fame for her installations and sculptures, passed away on August 14 at the age of 97 in a Tokyo hospital, as announced by her studio nearly two weeks later.
“Throughout an extraordinary life dedicated entirely to artistic creation, Kusama developed an internationally acclaimed career as a pioneering avant-garde artist, whose creative practice spanned the visual arts, performance, fiction, and poetry,” read the statement confirming her death on August 26.
Known as the “Princess of Polka Dots” due to the prevalence of these elements in her work, Kusama began her artistic journey in childhood, following a terrifying hallucination: a field where the flowers suddenly began to speak to her. The flowers resembled dots that “extended as far as the eye could see.” This experience profoundly influenced her future paintings.
