August 27, 2026
Yayoi Kusama dies at 97Yayoi Kusama died on 14 August 2026 at a hospital in Tokyo, according to an announcement by her studio. She was 97.
Born in Matsumoto, Japan, in 1929, Kusama began drawing as a child and later described hallucinations that transformed the world around her into repeating patterns. Dots, nets and proliferating forms became a lifelong visual language rather than a single motif.
After moving to the United States in 1957, she became an important presence in the New York avant-garde. Her Infinity Net paintings, performances, installations and mirrored environments crossed the boundaries between painting, sculpture, performance and popular culture. She returned to Japan in 1973 and, from 1977, lived voluntarily at a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo while continuing to work daily in a nearby studio.
Kusama represented Japan at the Venice Biennale in 1993. Her work later reached an exceptionally broad international audience through exhibitions and Infinity Mirror Rooms, while retaining its foundations in repetition, bodily experience and the artist’s sustained engagement with mental health. The Yayoi Kusama Museum opened in Tokyo in 2017.
Read the ArtOnline encyclopedia profile: Yayoi Kusama. | 
