Yayoi Kusama, Japanese artist who enthralled people worldwide with her polka dots and mirror rooms, has died aged 97

Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, known worldwide for her polka dots, pumpkins, and immersive Infinity Mirror Rooms, died aged 97 on 14 August in a Tokyo hospital from multiple organ failure, the Yayoi Kusama Foundation announced on 27 August. Born in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, in 1929, she moved to the US in 1957 and became part of New York’s avant-garde, later staging provocative anti-war and sexual-liberation happenings in the late 1960s. Her 1966 Venice Biennale intervention Narcissus Garden placed 1,500 reflective spheres outside the Italian pavilion and offered them for $2 each before organisers stopped the sale; she officially represented Japan at the Biennale in 1993. Kusama produced around 900 paintings in her My Eternal Soul series (2009–2021), and her 2024–25 National Gallery of Victoria retrospective drew 570,537 visitors, the museum’s most attended ticketed exhibition.

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