Pumpkin (White Y)

Medium: Screen-print in colors on Verin d’Arches paper
[2 screens, 2 colors, 2 runs]
Year: 1992
Image: 60.4 x 72.3 cm (23.8 x 28.5 inches)
Sheet: 70.8 x 84 cm (27.9 x 33.1 inches)
Edition: 120
Artist’s Proofs: 12 AP
Printer’s Proofs: 4 PP
Printer: Okabe Tokuzo, Tokyo
Literature: ABE 150
Yayoi Kusama Prints 1979-2017, ABE Publishing Ltd., Number 150, illustrated page 98

Signed, dated, and numbered in pencil on lower edge

 

Pumpkin (White Y) presents a restrained and deliberate variation within Yayoi Kusama’s sustained exploration of the motif. Reduced to a black-and-white palette, the image emphasizes structure, rhythm, and surface over chromatic intensity, offering a quieter but no less rigorous articulation of her visual language. The pumpkin is centrally placed, its segmented form defined through dense fields of white polka dots set against black. The dots shift subtly in scale along each lobe, creating a sense of volume and internal organization without resorting to traditional modeling. The absence of color directs attention to the mechanics of repetition itself, revealing how pattern alone can construct form. The background is filled with a continuous, irregular net pattern, also rendered in white against black. This all-over field extends evenly across the surface, contrasting with the contained silhouette of the pumpkin. As in many of Kusama’s works from this period, the dialogue between the bounded object and the expansive background introduces a measured tension between stability and continuity.

In Pumpkin (White Y), Kusama strips the image to its essentials. By limiting the palette, she foregrounds the underlying system that governs her practice, repetition as structure, pattern as form, inviting viewers to engage with the pumpkin not as a symbol, but as a carefully constructed visual constant.

For Kusama, the pumpkin is a motif loaded with personal history and symbolic meaning. Pumpkins (kabocha squash in Japan) were abundant in her family’s seed nursery, providing a source of comfort and stability during a troubled childhood marked by family conflict and hallucinations. They represent an anchor to her youth.  Kusama has also acknowledged that pumpkins function as self-portraits, their sturdy yet whimsical forms reflecting her own balance of vulnerability and resilience. The endlessly repeated dots and net patterns are a manifestation of her hallucinations and her desire to dissolve the boundaries between herself and the universe, a concept known as self-obliteration. Kusama uses the repetitive creation of forms that once terrified her as a form of art therapy, a tool to suppress her fears and gain control over her emotions.

Pumpkin (White Y) was executed and released in 1992. The 1990s marked a period of growing international recognition for Kusama. The print’s release occurred shortly before her representation of Japan at the Venice Biennale in 1993, an event that cemented her global standing and brought her pumpkin motif to an even wider audience.

Pumpkin (White Y) sold for its highest price of JPY 9,545,000 (USD 67,880) at SBI Art Auction on 27 May 2023.

SBI Art Auction: 27 May 2023
Estimated: JPY 4,000,000 – 7,000,000
JPY 9,545,000 / USD 67,880
AUCTION RECORD FOR PUMPKIN (WHITE Y)

YAYOI KUSAMA
Pumpkin (White Y) (Kusama 150), 1992
Screenprint
Signed, titled, dated and numbered
From the edition of 120

 

 

 

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Auction Results

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New Auction Tokyo: 22 November 2025
Estimated: JPY 5,000,000 – 8,000,000
JPY 5,750,000 / USD 36,600

YAYOI KUSAMA (1929 – )
Pumpkin (White-Y) (Kusama 150), 1992
Screenprint
Signed, titled, dated and numbered
From the edition of 120

SBI Art Auction: 25 October 2025
Estimated: JPY 4,000,000 – 7,000,000
JPY 7,475,000 / USD 48,915

YAYOI KUSAMA
Pumpkin (White Y) (Kusama 150), 1992
Screenprint
Signed, titled, dated and numbered
From the edition of 120
Printed by Okabe Tokuzo

SBI Art Auction: 12 September 2025
Estimated: JPY 4,000,000 – 7,000,000
JPY 7,245,000 / USD 49,210

YAYOI KUSAMA
Pumpkin (White Y) (Kusama 150), 1992
Screenprint
Signed, titled, dated and numbered
From the edition of 120

Mainichi Auction: 21 March 2025
Estimated: JPY 4,000,000 – 6,000,000
JPY 6,670,000 / USD 44,805

YAYOI KUSAMA
Pumpkin (White Y), 1992
Screenprint
Signed
From the edition of 120

Mainichi Auction: 8 February 2025
Estimated: JPY 4,000,000 – 6,000,000
JPY 5,520,000 / USD 36,455

YAYOI KUSAMA
Pumpkin (White Y), 1992
Screenprint
Signed
From the edition of 120

Mainichi Auction: 28 November 2024
Estimated: JPY 3,500,000 – 5,500,000
JPY 6,440,000 / USD 42,510

YAYOI KUSAMA
Pumpkin (White Y), 1992
Screenprint
Signed
From the edition of 120

Phillips Hong-Kong: 14 June 2024
Estimated: HKD 300,000 – 500,000
HKD 304,800 / USD 38,975

SBI Art Auction: 28 October 2023
Estimated: JPY 4,000,000 – 7,000,000
JPY 9,200,000 / USD 61,180

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929)
Pumpkin (White Y) (Kusama 150), 1992
Screenprint
Signed, titled, dated and numbered from the edition of 120

SBI Art Auction: 27 May 2023
Estimated: JPY 4,000,000 – 7,000,000
JPY 9,545,000 / USD 67,880
AUCTION RECORD FOR PUMPKIN (WHITE Y)

YAYOI KUSAMA
Pumpkin (White Y) (Kusama 150), 1992
Screenprint
Signed, titled, dated and numbered
From the edition of 120

Mainichi Auction: 29 April 2023
Estimated: JPY 4,000,000 – 6,000,000
JPY 8,970,000 / USD 65,835

YAYOI KUSAMA
Pumpkin (White Y), 1992
Screenprint
Signed
From the edition of 120

SBI Art Auction: 30 October 2021
Estimated: JPY 3,500,000 – 5,500,000
JPY 6,555,000 / USD 57,515

YAYOI KUSAMA
Pumpkin (White Y) (Kusama 150), 1992
Screenprint
Signed, titled, dated and numbered
From the edition of 120

Mainichi Auction: 31 July 2021
Estimated: JPY 3,500,000 – 5,500,000
JPY 5,400,000 (Hammer)
JPY 6,291,000 / USD 57,350

YAYOI KUSAMA
Pumpkin (White Y), 1992
Screenprint
Signed
From the edition of 120

Mainichi Auction: 17 October 2020
Estimated: JPY 2,000,000 – 3,000,000
JPY 3,600,000 (Hammer)
JPY 4,194,000 / USD 39,790

YAYOI KUSAMA
Pumpkin (White Y), 1992
Screenprint
Signed
From the edition of 120

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 5 June 2020
Estimated: HKD 150,000 – 250,000
HKD 325,000 / USD 41,935

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929)
Pumpkin (White Y), 1992
Screen-print
Signed ‘yayoi Kusama’, numbered ‘73/120′
Sated ‘1992′, titled in Japanese (lower edge)

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 16 April 2020
Estimated: HKD 150,000 – 250,000
HKD 325,000 / USD 41,915

YAYOI KUSAMA (b.1929)
PUMPKIN (WHITE Y), 1992
Screenprint
Signed in English, titled in Japanese, dated 1992 and numbered 35/120