Red Pumpkin

Medium: Screenprint in colors on Verin d’Arches paper
[2 screens, 2 colors, 2 runs]
Year: 1992
Image: 72.3 x 60.5 cm (28.5 x 23.8 inches)
Sheet: 84×71 cm (33.1 x 27.9 inches)
Edition: 120
Artist’s Proofs: 12 AP
Printer’s Proofs: 4 PP
Printer: Okabe Tokuzo, Tokyo
Literature: ABE 154
Yayoi Kusama Prints 1979-2017, ABE PUBLISHING LTD, Number 154, Illustrated page 100

Signed, dated, and numbered in pencil on lower edge

It was during her childhood visit to a seed nursery near her home in Matsumoto, Japan, that Yayoi Kusama first encountered a pumpkin. Afflicted with visual and auditory hallucinations, Kusama vividly recalls the pumpkin speaking to her younger self from the vine. Drawn to its “humorous form” and “warm feeling,” Kusama has since developed a lifelong fascination with the humble fruit. After her first attempt at depicting this subject matter in the traditional Japanese Nihonga style in 1946, Kusama continued to paint pumpkins diligently during her four-year-study at the Kyoto Senior High School of Art. Despite a temporary hiatus from the pumpkin after her relocation to New York in 1958, Kusama revisited her beloved motif in the 1970s, reimagining it in various mediums and scales in the subsequent decades.

“I would confront the spirit of the pumpkin, forgetting everything else and concentrating my mind entirely upon the form before me. Just as Bodhidharma spent ten years facing a stone wall, I spent as much as a month facing a single pumpkin. I regretted even having to take time to sleep” 

This brings together three prominent motifs in Kusama’s oeuvre – the pumpkin, polka dot, and infinity net. Set against an expansive background of net-like patterns that directly evoke her Infinity Net series, the vivid red pumpkin is covered with polka dots of alternating sizes. In delineating its, curvaceous shape, Kusama elevates the object through her at once graceful and whimsical treatment. In addition to these recurring motifs, Kusama further explores the central theme of repetition in this pumpkin through her chosen medium of screenprint. As she slowly builds up the form of the pumpkin through the accumulative use of polka dots, the near-meditative practice allows the artist to combat and transcend her hallucinatory mental illness. Simultaneously advancing and receding, the rhythmic dynamism of the dots imbues the pumpkin with an animated quality, creating a dazzling effect that transports the viewer into Kusama’s fantastical world.

Source: Phillips

Auction Results

Phillips New-York: 21 October 2025
Estimated: USD 30,000 – 50,000
USD 64,500

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 29 November 2023
Estimated: HKD 80,000 – 180,000
HKD 478,800 / USD 61,470

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929)
RED PUMPKIN, 1992
Screenprint
Edition: 75⁄120, alongside 12 AP and 4 PP
Signed, titled in Japanese, dated and numbered ‘Yayoi Kusama 1992 75⁄120’ (lower edge)

Est-Ouest Auctions Hong-Kong: 28 May 2023
Estimated: USD 60,000 – 75,000
USD 63,000

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929)
RED PUMPKIN, 1992
Screenprint
Signed, titled, dated and numbered on the margin

K Auction: 22 February 2023
Estimated: KRW 100,000,000 – 150,000,000
KRW 137,575,000 / USD 105,325

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929)
Red Pumpkin, 1992
Screenprint
Signed, titled, dated and numbered on the front

Zhong Cheng Auctions: 8 May 2022
Estimated: TWD 950,000 – 1,350,000
TWD 2,520,000 / USD 84,851

K Auction: 24 November 2021
Estimated: KRW 120,000,000 – 150,000,000
KRW 138,000,000 / USD 116,140

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929)
Red Pumpkin, 1992
Screenprint
Signed, titled, dated and numbered on the front

K Auction Seoul: 29 September 2021
Estimated: KRW 120,000,000 – 150,000,000
KRW 138,000,000 / USD 116,440

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929)
Red Pumpkin, 1992
Screenprint
Signed, titled, dated and numbered on the front

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 8 June 2018
Estimated: HKD 150,000 – 250,000
HKD 525,000 / USD 66,900

YAYOI KUSAMA
RED PUMPKIN, 1992
Signed, titled in Kanji, dated 1992 and numbered 101/120