YAYOI KUSAMA (JAPANESE B. 1929), PUMPKIN (GT) (KUSAMA 229)

YAYOI KUSAMA (JAPANESE B. 1929)PUMPKIN (GT) (KUSAMA 229)Screenprint in colours, 1996Signed in pencil, titled in Japanese, numbered 111/120 and dated 1996Image 29.5 x 22.5cm (11½ x 8¾ in.)Provenance: Mori Art Museum, TokyoAcquired from the above in 2004 during the exhibition 'Yayoi Kusama: Exhibition Kusamatrix'.Yayoi Kusama was born into a farming family in Matsumoto, Japan in 1929. Kusama recalls the first time she ever saw a pumpkin. When she was a young girl she visited a seed-harvesting ground with her grandfather and noted that she was 'enchanted by their charming and winsome form'. In her autobiography Infinity Net, Kusama quotes 'And there it was: a pumpkin the size of a man's head... it immediately began speaking to me in a most animated manner.' Consumed by drawing and painting from a young age Kusama's parents did not support her following her passion for art. Eventually her parents let her attend art school at the Yoto School of Arts and Crafts to study Nihonga, a traditional Japanese painting style. In 1958 Kusama moved to New York and became embedded within the pop-art movement coming into contact with artists including Andy Warhol, Donald Judd and Joseph Cornell. Kusama's work was ground-breaking as a Japanese artist in a Western society and a female artist in a male-dominated world. The recurring patterns and dots stemmed from a frightening experience as a young child where she was struck by hallucinations of talking flowers in a field, the expanse of flowers looked like a field of endless dots. Kusama's work is iconic for its vivid, colourful and playful nature. Her name has become synonymous with dots, pumpkins and infinity mirror rooms, which have led her success in interactive art installations. Condition Report: The print is unexamined out of its frame. it appears to be in excellent original conditionCondition Report Disclaimer