S ought-after for its voluptuous, full shape, Untitled (Pumpkin Sculpture) (2007) is an archetypal example of the artist’s highly coveted fiberglass reinforced plastic pumpkins. Rendered in Kusama’s signature palette of yellow and black, the meticulously-executed pumpkin sculpture measures a meter tall and a meter wide. One of the most admired and universally recognisable images of contemporary art today, Kusama’s pumpkins are central to the artist’s widely celebrated oeuvre, examples of which can be found in private collections and significant institutions around the world, such as the Fukuoka Prefectural Museum of Art in Japan. Significantly, the present work was exhibited at the artist’s landmark retrospective in Tel Aviv, Israel, titled, Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective, from November 2021 to May 2022, the artist’s first major exhibition in Israel that brought together artworks produced over an 80 year period.

In the present work, multi-sized striated black dots slither over the gleaming yellow skin of the pumpkin’s bulbous form, exhibiting Kusama’s extraordinarily dexterous skill, meticulous technique as well as the singular hallucinogenic vision that drives her legendary career. Kusama’s pumpkins are one of the most loved and recognized images in contemporary art today; feisty and universally adored, they are an embodiment of optimism, serenity and joy – an artistic and symbolic motif which the artist repeatedly returned to for “spiritual balance”, inspiration and motivation (Yayoi Kusama, trans. Ralph McCarthy, Infinity Net, London 2011, p.76).

Kusama’s profound connection with the pumpkin motif can be traced back to a vivid hallucinogenic episode during her childhood: “The first time I ever saw a pumpkin was when I was in elementary school and went with my grandfather to visit a big seed-harvesting ground…and there it was: a pumpkin the size of a man’s head…It immediately began speaking to me in a most animated manner” (Ibid, p. 75). The artist also recalls having overconsumed the vegetable to the point of nausea in her childhood years during and after the war. Kusama began painting images of the voluptuous vegetable during her Nihonga practice at the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts in the late 1940s; recalling this period, Kusama wrote: “During my time in Kyoto I diligently painted pumpkins, which in later years would become an important theme in my art” (Ibid, p. 75).

Kusama’s pumpkin motif in its matured polka dotted form made its formal entrance in the artist’s oeuvre during the 1980s and 1990s, appearing in paintings, drawings and prints, as well as in her defining environmental installation Mirror Room (Pumpkin) at the Fuji Television Gallery and the Hara Museum in Tokyo in 1991. The dazzling and immersive installation was subsequently recreated at the Japanese Pavilion at the 45th Venice Biennale in 1993, at which she handed out little takeaway pumpkins to visitors. Kusama was the first solo artist as well as the first woman ever to grace the Japanese pavilion at the Biennale – an occasion that marked the artist’s status as a truly international artist – and the momentous milestone was made possible by her wholly distinctive and paradigmatic pumpkins.

By the 2000s, Kusama’s pumpkins had become a central theme and emblem of the artist’s epochal and multifaceted oeuvre, appearing again and again often in larger than life sculptural forms and installed in iconic sites around the world, such as the Fukuoka Prefectural Museum of Art in Japan. In February 2018, a pumpkin sculpture executed in 2008, a year after the present work is dated, inaugurated Hong Kong’s first international sculpture park at the Central harbourfront. Each of these pumpkins stand as a symbol of triumph for Kusama’s ascension to triumph as one of the most important living contemporary artists today, whilst also sending out a message of hope, peace and love to fans and art lovers at all corners of the world.

這 件2007年的《無題（南瓜雕塑）》外觀飽滿豐腴，是深受喜愛的草間南瓜代表作。今次拍賣的南瓜採用了極具標誌性的黃黑配色，以玻璃纖維強化塑膠製作，高度和寬度均達到整整一米。草間的南瓜是如今家喻戶曉的當代藝術形象之一，它是草間創作世界的核心，不少精美的南瓜雕塑已被全球各地的私人和重要藝術機構收藏，例如日本福岡縣立美術館。值得一提的是，《無題（南瓜雕塑）》是去年11月到今年5月在特拉維夫舉行的大型展覽「草間彌生：回顧展」的展品之一，該展覽是草間在以色列的首場個展，匯集了她從藝逾八十年來的作品。

大小不一的黑色圖點在球莖狀的鮮黃外皮上蔓延四散，展示藝術家純熟精湛的創作技巧，獨一無二的奇異幻覺，奠定草間的傳奇成就。她的南瓜活力充沛，備受世人喜愛，集樂觀、平和與喜悅於一身。它們是草間一再回顧的藝術及象徵符號，為她帶來「靈性和諧」、創作靈感和動力（草間彌生，拉爾夫・麥卡錫譯，《無限網》，倫敦，2011年，頁76）。

草間與南瓜的淵源深遠，可追溯至她兒時生動清晰的幻覺，她回憶道：「我第一次看見南瓜是小學的時候，當時我和祖父到一個大型種子採集場參觀...... 看到一個人頭般大的南瓜...... 它還栩栩如生地開始和我說話」（同上，頁75）。她亦回想起兒時經歷的戰爭及戰後時期，她每天總以南瓜為食，直至作嘔反胃。四十年代末，草間在京都市立工藝美術學校學習日本畫期間開始繪畫南瓜，她憶述這段時期時說過：「我在京都的時候已極力繪畫南瓜，後來南瓜更成為我的重要創作主題」（同上，頁75）。

草間以精煉嫻熟的圓點點綴南瓜，令它們正式成為其八、九十年代的創作主題。南瓜遍及她的油畫、素描和版畫，當中更包括1991年在東京富士電視畫廊及原美術館展出的裝置《鏡房（南瓜）》。其後於1993年，她為第45屆威尼斯雙年展日本展館重構了這個眩目迷人的藝術裝置，並在現場向參觀者派發小型南瓜。草間是在威尼斯雙年展日本展館參展的首位獨立女性藝術家，此舉奠定了她在國際上的地位。她憑藉獨樹一幟、別具代表性的南瓜主題，樹立了事業生涯上的重要里程碑。

時至千禧年代，南瓜成為草間的主要創作主題，她常以龐大的雕塑，在世界各地的重要場所呈現南瓜的形象，標誌著劃時代多元創作時期的來臨。《無題（南瓜雕塑）》作於2007年，與草間的大型南瓜系列一脈相承。該系列的作品均安放在各大著名博物館及戶外場地，當中包括福岡縣立美術館的《南瓜》（1994年作）以及直島文化村的《南瓜》（2006年作）等。2018年2月，一件2008年的南瓜雕塑在香港中環海濱首個國際級雕塑公園初次登場。每個南瓜均象徵著草間的非凡成就，見證了她躍升為重要的在世當代藝術家的歷程，同時向世界每個角落的支持者及藝術愛好者傳遞希望、和平與愛的訊息。