Yayoi Kusama, sometimes called the Princess of Polka Dots, is the most successful living female artist in the world. At age 91, worldwide exhibitions of her brightly colored paintings and happily dotted sculptures regularly sell out. She works nearly every day at her studio, located two blocks away from the psychiatric hospital where she has lived for over 40 years.
Born in Matsumoto, Japan in 1929 to an affluent family, Kusama knew at an early age she wanted to be a painter. Her mother had other ideas, intending for her to become a proper Japanese housewife. Unhappy with her own life, Kusama’s mother was emotionally and physically abusive and often sent Kusama to spy on her father’s liaisons with other women. Kusama’s quick style of painting is attributed to the times her mother snuck up behind her, grabbing works in progress and destroying them. These childhood traumas left her with a lifelong battle with mental illness.
Turning down several marriage proposals, she took the advice of American artist Georgia O’Keefe and relocated to New York City in 1958. Struggling to break into the male-dominated art world, she became a relentless self-promoter. Her strong sense of fashion and flamboyant wigs helped her find some success in galleries and group shows. Known as “infinity nets” Kusama’s large works of dotted canvas attracted the attention of painter Frank Stella who purchased one for $75. It would later sell for $750,000.
She then turned her attention to soft sculpture works and infinity mirrored and wallpapered rooms. These works, to most accounts, were copied by artists like Claes Oldenburg and Andy Warhol, who successfully capitalized on her ideas both artistically and financially. These slights brought about severe depression, leading to her first suicide attempt by jumping out a window.
In the 1960’s she started her “Naked Happenings” where she painted polka dots and other adornments on naked participants. She used these happenings to make social statements, such as marrying gay friends and protesting the war in Vietnam. Her anti-war beliefs were drawn from her own experiences as a young schoolgirl where she was forced to sew parachutes for the Japanese army in WWII.
Kusama’s behavior scandalized her native country, where she became so reviled that her childhood school removed her name from their alumni list. Nevertheless, broke and in fragile mental health she returned to Japan in 1973. Shunned by the Japanese art world and mourning the death of her father, another suicide attempt found her checking into a mental hospital that specialized in art therapy. It would become her permanent home.
During the 1970’s she mainly created collages with very dark themes. By the 1980’s, renewed interest in her art saw retrospectives of her work in the US and Europe. As she gathered more acclaim, her pieces became more joyful. In 1993, the Japan Pavilion at the famous Venice Biennale art show was dedicated to her art. For the occasion, she created oversized pumpkins covered in polka dots that were the talk of the Biennale. Since that time she has worked almost non-stop.
With exhibitions and installations throughout the world, Kusama is now acknowledged to be one of the most influential Japanese artists. Her artistic style, dots and objects that seem to stretch to infinity, are seen as her attempt to express and manage her mental illness. Her collaborations with Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs and others has expanded her international fame. She has garnered such worldwide acclaim that her hometown of Matsumoto, which once shunned her, now celebrates her works in their city museum. A documentary of her life, Kusama: Infinity is available to stream on HULU.