Yayoi Kusama

painting: signed in English, titled in Japanese and dated 1982 on the reverse, framed



screenprint: signed in English, titled in Japanese, dated 1982 and marked A.P., this work is from an edition of 50, framed

There is some grime on the edges and corners of the painting. Otherwise, the work is in good condition overall. The print is in good condition overall.
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Created in 1982, Hat (Lot 756) by Yayoi Kusama is an exceptional work conceived following a climactic point in the Japanese artist's prolific and long career.  After enjoying fame as the New York art scene's It-girl in the 1960s, showing exhibitions and organizing 'happenings,' Kusama retreated to her home country in 1973, a place she had left for almost two decades. By 1975, she had been hospitalized at Seiwa Hospital in Tokyo, a place she would regard as her home, permanently moving in two years later. Constantly in battle with her mental illness, Kusama's oeuvre reflects the visions which would overcome her as a child; her style of 'infinite repetition' allowed her to cope for many years with her debilitating psychological state. Critics and gallerists alike have labeled her works many things—Surrealist, Minimal, Pop, Conceptual—Kusama once asserted: 'since I rely on my own interior imagination, I am not concerned with whatever they [people] want to say about me.'

Kusama's approximately 10-year  hiatus and withdrawal from the art world in order to combat her increasingly incapacitating hallucinations and exercise her own self-reflection ended in 1982, with her first solo exhibition in Japan since leaving New York. It was a vital and crucial year in Kusama's career, which had seemingly disintegrated back in the United States. But it would the 1980s that would see the resurgence of such an accomplished, yet tormented artist in the global art scene.  

Sotheby's is very pleased to be offering the set of two works, the original painting and a screenprint, from such an exciting and critical period in the life of a truly celebrated artist in our autumn sale this October. Hat, an exceptional painting, combining Kusama's famous 'infinity net' and 'polka dot' iconography together in perfection, is a work which speaks for itself. The intricacy, yet femininity of this painting, with its bright red and white palette, another Kusama trademark, commands the attention of any viewer.