The pumpkin is perhaps the most enduring and recognised of legendary Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s famed repertoire of motifs, first appearing in paintings created in her teens. Enchanted by its squat, reassuring form, Kusama repeatedly revisited the pumpkin over the decades, in paintings, sculpture and poetry – where she describes how the spirituality of the pumpkin brings about poetic peace and captures the hearts of people.
Giving off an aura of my sacred mental state,
They embody a base for the joy of living,
A living shared by all of humankind on earth.
It is for the pumpkins that I keep on going.
– Yayoi Kusama, excerpt from On Pumpkins, 2010
Discover Yayoi Kusama’s Pumpkin (L) and more in 50th Anniversary Contemporary Evening Auction and join us live on 5 April 2023.
