Flower Garden
Medium: Screenprint in colors on Izumi paper
[17 screens, 19 colors, 20 runs]
Year: 1989
Image: 45.3 x 52.5 cm (17.8 x 20.8 inches)
Sheet: 53.5 x 61 cm (21.1 x 24 inches)
Edition: 100
Artist’s Proofs: 10 AP
Printer’s Proofs: 3 PP
Printer: Okabe Tokuzo, Tokyo
Literature: ABE 121
Yayoi Kusama Prints 1979-2017, ABE PUBLISHING LTD, Number 121, Illustrated page 79
Signed, dated, and numbered in pencil on lower edge
In Flower Garden , stylized blossoms and a fantastical butterfly-like form pulsate against a deep backdrop. The surface is animated by patterned repetition and bold, contrasting hues that belie the two-dimensional plane, creating a vivid optical tension between figure and ground. The flowers and insect are not mere depictions of nature but explorations of patterned life-forms that resonate with Kusama’s lifelong compulsion towards repetition and expansion.
Floral imagery occupies a unique niche in Kusama’s oeuvre. Unlike her immersive Infinity Mirror Rooms or monumental public sculptures, her botanical prints reveal a more intimate, yet equally obsessive, interrogation of nature. Kusama’s early years were marked by vivid hallucinations of flowers and nets, experiences she later translated into her signature motifs of polka dots, webs, and organic forms. In Flower Garden, the flowers are not botanical studies but vibrational fields: each bloom reflects a universe of color and dot patterning that suggests both growth and infinite multiplicity. The densely networked background, a lattice of sinuous lines, reinforces a sense of boundless generative space, echoing her concept of self-obliteration (where individual form dissolves into pattern). This motif, central to her creative philosophy, often appears throughout her prints and installations, suggesting cycles of life, repetition, and dissolution.
While Kusama is often associated with polka dots and infinity rooms, works like Flower Garden articulate a complementary strand of her practice: a meditative reiteration of life’s forms. Rather than tranquil botanicals, these flowers — and the butterfly-like entity hovering above them — embody her psychological landscapes: exuberant, meticulous, and unbounded. The interplay of decorative exuberance and structural rhythm in Flower Garden demonstrates Kusama’s ability to merge pop sensibility with existential depth, a garden that is at once playful and compulsive, rooted in both memory and imagination.
Auction Results
Mallet Japan: 4 December 2025
Estimated: JPY 1,500,000 – 2,500,000
JPY 3,200,000 (Hammer)
JPY 3,728,000 / USD 24,030
YAYOI KUSAMA
Flower Garden (Abe 121), 1989
Screenprint in colors on Izumi
Signed, dated and numbered in pencil
From the edition of 100 (there were also 10 A.P.)
Printed by Tokuzo Okabe
SBI Art Auction: 27 January 2023
Estimated: JPY 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
JPY 3,680,000 / USD 28,350
YAYOI KUSAMA
Flower Garden (Kusama 121), 1989
Screenprint
Signed, dated and numbered from the edition of 100
SBI Art Auction: 28 October 2022
Estimated: JPY 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
JPY 5,060,000 / USD 34,590
YAYOI KUSAMA
Flower Garden (Kusama 121), 1989
Screenprint
Signed, dated and numbered from the edition of 100
Est-Ouest Auctions Tokyo: 24 September 2022
Estimated: JPY 4,000,000 – 6,000,000
JPY 6,050,000 / USD 42,530
YAYOI KUSAMA
FLOWER GARDEN, 1989
Screenprint
Signed, dated and numbered on the margin
SBI Art Auction: 15 July 2022
Estimated: JPY 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
JPY 6,555,000 / USD 47,165
YAYOI KUSAMA
Flower Garden (Kusama 121), 1989
Screenprint
Signed, dated and numbered from the edition of 100
Mallet Japan: 3 March 2022
Estimated: JPY 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
JPY 5,200,000 (Hammer)
JPY 6,058,000 / USD 56,200
AUCTION RECORD FOR FLOWER GARDEN
YAYOI KUSAMA
Flower Garden, 1989
Screenprint in colors
Signed
From the edition of 100
SBI Art Auction: 30 October 2021
Estimated: JPY 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
JPY 4,600,000 / USD 40,360
YAYOI KUSAMA
Flower Garden (Kusama 121), 1989
Screenprint
Signed, dated and numbered
From the edition of 100