Red Colored Pumpkin

Medium: Screenprint in colors on Verin d’Arches paper
[3 screens, 2 colors, 3 runs]
Year: 1994
Image: 45.5 x 52.5 cm (17.9 x 20.7 inches)
Sheet: 55 x 63.5 cm (21.7 x 25 inches)
Edition: 98
Artist’s Proofs: 9 AP
Printer’s Proofs: 5 PP
Printer: Okabe Tokuzo, Tokyo
Literature: ABE 189
Yayoi Kusama Prints 1979-2017, ABE PUBLISHING LTD, Number 189, Illustrated page 116

Signed, dated, and numbered in pencil on lower edge

 

“I adore pumpkins… Pumpkins talk to me, giving off an aura of my sacred mental state. They embody a base for the joy of living shared by all humankind on earth. It is for the pumpkins that I keep on going.”

Undoubtedly one of the most iconic motifs of contemporary art and of Yayoi Kusama’s incredible 70-year career, the polka-dot covered pumpkin combines the artist’s compulsive focus on infinity and repetition with a highly personal and self-reflective dimension. Rendered as a floating mass amongst a crackled carmine backdrop – reflecting the color of the artist’s distinct red hair – Kusama deploys her army of loyal dots in strict formation. Their various sizes that gradually shrink into oblivion create the illusion of curvature, the negative space of the recesses reflecting the undulating segments on the pumpkin’s stout body. Kusama’s bright and brilliantly patterned gourds are so closely connected to the artist’s identity that they function as both allegory and a mode of self-representation, acting as a universal signature of the artist.

As a child, Kusama began to sketch pumpkins in the wake of her first hallucinatory episode. At age 17 she made her public pumpkin debut with Kabocha, a Nihonga-style painting (made in accordance with Japanese artistic conventions, tools, materials and style), which she presented at a travelling exhibition in the towns of Nagano and Matsumoto. After these inceptive artistic attempts, the pumpkin motif disappeared from her oeuvre for decades, but then resurged in the 1970s and 1980s, following a period in which the artist focused on performance art. Pumpkins would take hold of her artistic practise, becoming an obsessive fascination for Kusama, owing to her deeply personal relationship with the motif. This interest was compounded in the 1990s, when the image was included in the artist’s interactive installations known as Infinity Mirror Rooms.

Source: Phillips

 

 

 

 

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Auction Results

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Alex Cooper Auctioneers: 13 June 2025
Estimated: USD 20,000 – 40,000
USD 12,000 (Hammer)
USD 15,360

YAYOI KUSAMA (Japanese, b. 1929)
Red Colored Pumpkin (Kusama 189), 1994
Screenprint in colors
Edition: 58/98
Pencil signed “Yayoi Kusama” lower right
Inscribed in Japanese lower center
Printed by Okabe Tokuzo

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 29 May 2025
Estimated: HKD 200,000 – 400,000
HKD 330,200 / USD 42,175

YAYOI KUSAMA (b. 1929)
Red Colored Pumpkin (Kusama CR 189), 1994
Screenprint
Signed Yayoi Kusama, titled 赤色かぼちゃ, dated 1994 and numbered 87/98 (lower edge)
This work is number 87 from an edition of 98, plus 9 artist’s proofs and 5 printer’s proofs

Mallet Auction: 15 May 2025
Estimated: JPY 4,000,000 – 6,000,000
JPY 6,200,000 (Hammer)
JPY 7,223,000 / USD 49,595

YAYOI KUSAMA
Red Colored Pumpkin (ABE 189), 1994
Screenprint in colors on Arches
Signed, titled, dated and numbered in pencil, from the edition of 98

Phillips London: 6 June 2024
Estimated: GBP 20,000 – 30,000
GBP 40,640 / USD 51,816

Sotheby’s London: 20 March 2024
Estimated: GBP 20,000 – 30,000
GBP 44,450 / USD 56,452

YAYOI KUSAMA (b. 1929)
Red Colored Pumpkin, 1994
Screenprint in colors on wove paper
Signed in pencil, titled in Japanese, dated and numbered 43/98

Christie’s London: 28 September 2023
Estimated: GBP 30,000 – 50,000
GBP 47,880 / USD 58,511

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929)
Red Colored Pumpkin, 1994
Screen-print in colors on Arches wove paper
Signed, titled in Japanese, dated and numbered 92/98 in pencil

Seoul Auction: 27 September 2022
Estimated: KRW 80,000,000 – 120,000,000
KRW 97,940,000 / USD 68,452

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929)
Red Colored Pumpkin, 1994
Screen-print in colors
Signed, titled in Japanese, dated and numbered 35/98 in pencil

SBI Art Auction: 17 September 2022
Estimated: JPY 3,500,000 – 5,500,000
JPY 8,855,000 / USD 61,940

YAYOI KUSAMA
RED COLOURED PUMPKIN, 1994
Screenprint in colors
Signed, titled, dated and numbered from the edition of 98

Clars Auction: 16 September 2022
Estimated: USD 20,000 – 40,000
USD 20,000 (HAMMER)

Bonhams Hong-Kong: 26 May 2022
Estimated: HKD 100,000 – 150,000
HKD 532,200 / USD 67,797

K Auction Seoul: 23 February 2022
Estimated: KRW 90,000,000 – 120,000,000
KRW 103,500,000 / USD 86,955

SBI Art Auction: 24 April 2021
Estimated: JPY 2,500,000 – 3,500,000
JPY 5,290,000 / USD 49,005

YAYOI KUSAMA
Red Colored Pumpkin (Kusama 189), 1994
Screenprint
Signed, titled, dated and numbered
From the edition of 98

Mainichi Auction Tokyo: 13 March 2021
Estimated: JPY 1,500,000 – 2,000,000
JPY 3,400,000 (Hammer)
JPY 3,961,000 / USD 36,340

YAYOI KUSAMA
Red colored pumpkin, 1994
Screenprint
Signed
From the edition of 98

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 11 July 2020
Estimated: HKD 100,000 – 150,000
HKD 275,000 / USD 35,475

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929)
Red Colored Pumpkin, 1994
Screenprint
Signed, dated and numbered ’89/98 1994 Yayoi Kusama’
Titled in Japanese (lower edge)

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 15 September 2020
Estimated: HKD 150,000 – 250,000
HKD 300,000

YAYOI KUSAMA
RED COLOURED PUMPKIN, 1994
Signed in English, titled in Japanese, dated 1994 and numbered 92/98

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 24 November 2019
Estimated: HKD 100,000 – 150,000
HKD 475,000 / USD 60,676

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929)
Red Colored Pumpkin, 1994
Screen-print
Titled in Japanese, numbered, dated and signed ‘58/98 1994 Yayoi Kusama’ (lower edge)