Yayoi Kusama, Dot Artist, Dies at 97
- Yayoi Kusama died on 14 August aged 97 in a Tokyo hospital, according to her company.
- Her polka-dot paintings and immersive installations were exhibited at major institutions worldwide, including MoMA New York and the Gropius Bau in Berlin.
- A retrospective at Cologne's Museum Ludwig, which closed in early August, attracted over 450,000 visitors — a record for the museum.
Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese artist whose obsessive polka dots and immersive installations made her one of the most recognised figures in contemporary art, has died at the age of 97. Her company confirmed she passed away on 14 August in a hospital in Tokyo. No cause of death was given.
A career defined by repetition and colour
Kusama's work was built on recurring visual motifs — nets, spirals, and forms suggestive of worms or tendrils — though it was the dot that became her unmistakable signature. Applied across canvases, sculptures, and vast mirrored installations, her dots appeared as glittering spheres and points of light rendered in vivid, psychedelic hues. Critics and curators came to regard her as one of the foremost contemporary artists of her generation.
Her work was exhibited at institutions around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Gropius Bau in Berlin. In Cologne, a major retrospective at the Museum Ludwig closed in early August — drawing more than 450,000 visitors and breaking every attendance record in the museum's history.
A final chapter of remarkable reach
The Cologne retrospective's record-breaking figures underscored how widely Kusama's appeal had grown in her final years. Her death comes weeks after that exhibition closed, and only days before what would have been further celebrations of her legacy. The loss extends beyond Japan: her work had become, for many, a byword for the power of obsessive artistic vision. Her passing follows a series of notable cultural losses in recent months, including the deaths of Tim Curry and Dolly Parton.
Kusama's company has not announced details of any memorial arrangements.
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