Japanese contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama, known for polka dots and infinity rooms, dies at 97

Passing in Tokyo and global announcement

Japanese contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama died on 14 August 2026 in a Tokyo hospital at the age of 97. Art dealer David Zwirner confirmed her passing on 26 August, stating that she died from multiple organ failure. Japanese public broadcaster NHK and her foundation subsequently confirmed the details of her death. During the announcement, Zwirner assessed her worldwide stature and enduring creative influence across contemporary art movements.

At the time of her passing, Kusama was, without a doubt, the most famous living artist in the world.

Kusama produced works that commanded tens of millions of dollars at auctions and drew millions of visitors to global museums.

Early life and the emergence of infinity motifs

Born in Matsumoto in 1929, Kusama experienced childhood trauma alongside psychotic hallucinations that began at an early age. She grew up with an unfaithful father and a physically abusive mother who attempted to prohibit her from making art. Hallucinatory visions of recurring patterns covering her surroundings led her to paint polka dots to manage panic and anxiety. She later documented these early experiences of visual overwhelm and dissociation.

I had begun to self-obliterate, to revolve in the infinity of endless time and the absoluteness of space, and be reduced to nothingness.

After studying traditional Nihonga painting beginning in 1948 and training at the Kyoto School of Arts and Crafts, she held her first solo exhibition in Matsumoto in 1952. That debut presented early iterations of her signature canvas surfaces, which she called infinity nets.

The New York avant-garde years

Kusama moved to New York in 1958 to escape what she regarded as restrictive social and artistic structures in post-war Japan.

For art like mine -- art that does battle at the boundary between life and death, questioning what we are and what it means to live and die -- this country was too small, too servile, too feudalistic and too scornful of women.

While living in the United States, Kusama pioneered mirrored Infinity Rooms, staged psychedelic performances, and produced soft sculptures by covering shoes and rowboats in sewn white fabric. Painter Georgia O'Keeffe assisted her during early financial hardships by persuading dealer Edith Herbert to purchase Kusama's works. Sustained overwork resulted in recurring hospital admissions starting in 1961, as well as an attempted suicide. Her room-scale installations established methods that later defined experiential and immersive exhibition formats.

Return to Tokyo and institutional legacy

Kusama returned to Japan in 1973 and voluntarily took up residence in a Tokyo psychiatric hospital in 1977, living there while commuting daily to her nearby art studio. Her creative output spanned seven decades, traversing minimalism, pop art, and feminist performance art while centering on pumpkin motifs and dots. In an interview with Bomb Magazine, she reflected on the direct link between her daily practice and her health.

My works are an expression of my life, especially my mental illness.

Museums worldwide continued staging extensive exhibitions of her catalog up to her final months. A recent retrospective at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne presented more than 300 works spanning her childhood to the present, becoming the most visited exhibition in that institution's history.