As an inverse variation of Kusama’s celebrated Infinity Net paintings, dots and nets are two interchangeable motifs adopted by the artist to negate her neurosis.

“Our earth is only one polka-dot among a million stars in the cosmos. Polka-dots are a way to infinity. […] When we obliterate nature and our bodies with polka-dots, we become part of the unity of our environment. I become part of the eternal and we obliterate ourselves in love.”

YAYOI KUSAMA PHOTOGRAPHED IN 2011 / OTA FINE ARTS, TOKYO / © YAYOI KUSAMA, YAYOI KUSAMA STUDIO INC.

As a visual motif, the polka dot evolved from its first appearances in the backgrounds of Kusama’s early drawings, to mirrored spheres in Narcissus Garden (1966) that was installed for the 33rd Venice Biennale, to an infinite pattern that sprawls across pumpkins, clothing, mirror rooms and beyond.

2025 Auction Results

Dots (Infinity Dots), 1990

Infinity Dots, TWXZP, 2003

Sotheby’s Paris: 10 April 2025
Estimated: EUR 250,000 – 350,000
EUR 241,300 / USD 264,215

Infinity Dots, TWXZP | Art Moderne et Contemporain Evening Auction | 2025 | Sotheby’s

YAYOI KUSAMA (b. 1929)
Infinity Dots, TWXZP, 2003
Acrylic on canvas
45.8 x 53.1 cm (18 x 20 7/8 inches)
Signed, titled, inscribed and dated 2003 (on the reverse)

DOTS-OBSESSION Early Spring [TWOT], 2003

SBI Art Auction: 25 January 2025
Estimated: JPY 15,000,000 – 25,000,000
JPY 24,150,000 / USD 154,775

RESULTS｜SBI Art Auction

YAYOI KUSAMA
DOTS-OBSESSION Early Spring [TWOT], 2003
Acrylic on canvas
22 x 27.3 cm (8 5/8 x 10 3/4 inches)
Signed, titled and dated on the reverse

2024 Auction Results

Buds, 1987

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 28 May 2024
Estimated: HKD 20,000,000 – 30,000,000
HKD 23,970,000 / USD 3,068,749

Buds (christies.com)

YAYOI KUSAMA (b. 1929)
Buds, 1987
Acrylic on canvas (triptych)
Each: 194×130 cm (76 3/8 x 11 3/4 inches)
Overall: 194×390 cm (76 3/8 x 153 1/2 inches)
Signed, titled, and dated ‘BUDS 1987 YAYOI KUSAMA’ (on the reverse of panel 1/3)
Signed, titled, and dated ‘YAYOI KUSAMA 1987 BUDS’ (on the reverse of panel 2/3)
Signed, titled, and dated ‘BUDS YAYOI KUSAMA 1987 Yayoi Kusama’ (on the reverse of panel 3/3)

INFINITY-DOTS (OPQRT), 2008

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 27 September 2024
Estimated: HKD 9,000,000 – 15,000,000
HKD 11,265,000 / USD 1,448,036

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929), INFINITY-DOTS (OPQRT) | Christie’s (christies.com)

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929)
INFINITY-DOTS (OPQRT), 2008
Acrylic on canvas
162×162 cm (63 3/4 x 63 3/4 inches)
Signed, titled and dated ‘Yayoi Kusama 2008 INFINITY-DOTS OPQRT’ (on the reverse)

Dots Obsession (TBAOQ), 2007

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 800,000 – 1,200,000
USD 1,320,500

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929), Dots Obsession (TBAOQ) | Christie’s (christies.com)

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929)
Dots Obsession (TBAOQ), 2007
Acrylic on canvas
130.5 x 162.1 cm (51 3/8 x 63 7/8 inches)
Signed, titled and dated ‘Yayoi Kusama 2007 Dots Obsession TBAOQ’ (on the reverse)

INFINITY-DOTS (ENNZ), 2016

Christie’s New-York: 22 November 2024
Estimated: USD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
USD 1,008,000

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929), INFINITY-DOTS (ENNZ) | Christie’s

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929)
INFINITY-DOTS (ENNZ), 2016
Acrylic on canvas
145.4 x 112.1 cm (57 1/4 x 44 1/8 inches)
Signed, titled and dated ‘YAYOI KUSAMA 2016 INFINITY-DOTS ENNZ’ (on the reverse)

Night of Stars (TWOSA), 2007

Sotheby’s London: 10 October 2024
Estimated: GBP 250,000 – 350,000
GBP 420,000 / USD 602,600

Night of Stars (TWOSA) | Contemporary Day Auction | 2024 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

YAYOI KUSAMA (b. 1929)
Night of Stars (TWOSA), 2007
Urethane resin on canvas
194×194 cm (76 3/8 x 76 3/8 inches)
Signed, titled and dated 2007 (on the stretcher)

Dots, 1989

Poly Auction Hong-Kong: 7 April 2024
Estimated: HKD 1,800,000 – 2,800,000
HKD 2,160,000 / USD 276,144

Dots｜Poly Auction Hong Kong

YAYOI KUSAMA
Dots, 1989
Acrylic on canvas
32.3 x 41.2 cm. (12 1/2 x 16 inches)
Titled in Japanese; signed and dated ‘yayoi Kusama 1989’ (on the reverse)

2023 Auction Results

Infinity Dots (HTI), 2001

Phillips Hong-Kong: 30 March 2023
Estimated: HKD 25,000,000 – 30,000,000
HKD 27,675,000 / USD 3,525,523

Yayoi Kusama – 20th Century & Contempo… Lot 11 March 2023 | Phillips

Dots-obsession [QZBA], 2007

Christie’s Paris: 19 October 2023
Estimated: EUR 700,000 – 1,000,000
EUR 1,431,500 / USD 1,513,053

Yayoi Kusama (née en 1929) (christies.com)

YAYOI KUSAMA (Born 1929)
Dots-obsession [QZBA], 2007
Acrylic on canvas
194×194 cm (76 3/8 x 76 3/8 inches)
Signed, titled and dated ‘Yayoi Kusama 2007 ”DOTS-OBSESSION QZBA”’ (on the reverse)

Dots Obsession, 2004

Sotheby’s New-York: 16 November 2023
Estimated: USD 1,200,000 – 1,800,000
USD 1,391,000

Dots Obsession | Contemporary Day Auction | 2023 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

YAYOI KUSAMA (b. 1929)
Dots Obsession, 2004
Acrylic on canvas
145.4 x 146.1 cm (57 1/4 x 57 1/2 inches)
Signed, titled and dated 2004 (on the reverse)

Door to the Universe, 1995

Sotheby’s New-York: 19 May 2023
Estimated: USD 700,000 – 1,000,000
USD 1,330,500

Door to the Universe | Contemporary Day Auction | 2023 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

YAYOI KUSAMA (b. 1929)
Door to the Universe, 1995
Acrylic on canvas
130.2 x 97.2 cm (51 1/4 x 38 1/4 inches)
Signed, dated 1995 and inscribed Cosmic Door in Japanese (on the reverse)

Infinity Double Dots, 2013

Est-Ouest Auctions Hong-Kong: 28 May 2023
Estimated: USD 1,100,000 – 1,300,000
USD 1,245,000

YAYOI KUSAMA
Infinity Double Dots, 2003
Acrylic on canvas
145.5 x 112 cm (57 3/8 x 44 1/8 inches)
Signed, titled, dated and labeled on the reverse

The Galaxy, 1991

Est-Ouest Auctions Hong-Kong: 28 May 2023
Estimated: USD 900,000 – 1,100,000
USD 756,000

YAYOI KUSAMA
The Galaxy, 1991
Acrylic on canvas
61×91 cm (24 x 35 7/8 inches)
Signed, titled, dated and labeled on the reverse “Robert Miller Gallery”

Infinity Dots, 1992

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 29 November 2023
Estimated: HKD 1,000,000 – 2,000,000
HKD 1,386,000 / USD 177,564

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929), Infinity Dots | Christie’s (christies.com)

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929)
Infinity Dots, 1992
Acrylic on canvas
22.7 x 15.8 cm (8 7/8 x 6 1/4 inches)
Titled in Japanese; signed and dated ‘KUSAMA 1992’ (on the reverse)

Dots Infinity, 2001

Sotheby’s New-York: 9 March 2023
Estimated: USD 60,000 – 80,000
USD 130,700

Dots Infinity | Contemporary Curated | 2023 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

YAYOI KUSAMA (b. 1929)
Dots Infinity, 2001
Acrylic on canvas
25.1 x 15.9 cm (9 7/8 x 6 1/4 inches)
Signed Yayoi Kusama, titled and dated 2001 (on the reverse)

2022 Auction Results

Evening Sun (TOAXT), 2007

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 25 May 2022
Estimated: HKD 15,000,000 – 20,000,000
HKD 22,050,000 / USD 2,808,953

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929) (christies.com)

YAYOI KUSAMA
The Evening Sun (TOXAT), 2007
Acrylic on canvas
160×130 cm. (63 x 51 1/8 inches)

Dots Obsession (FOPMU), 2013

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 1 December 2022
Estimated: HKD 14,500,000 – 20,000,000
HKD 18,450,000 / USD 2,372,136

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929) (christies.com)

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929)
Dots Obsession (FOPMU), 2013
Acrylic on canvas
194×194 cm (76 3/8 x 76 3/8 inches)
Signed, titled and dated ‘FOPMU YAYOI KUSAMA 2013 DOTS OBSESSION’ (on the reverse)

Gold Accumulation (1), 1999

Phillips Hong-Kong: 1 December 2022
Estimated: HKD 8,000,000 – 12,000,000
HKD 9,930,000 / USD 1,276,710

Yayoi Kusama – 20th Century & Conte… Lot 15 December 2022 | Phillips

Dots Obsession, 1997

Bonhams New-York: 19 May 2022
Estimated: USD 250,000 – 450,000
USD 1,134,375

Bonhams : YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929) Dots Obsession 1997

Dot Obsession-T.W.KEV, 2005

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 28 April 2022
Estimated: HKD 4,300,000 – 6,500,000
HKD 6,930,000 / USD 883,207

Yayoi Kusama 草間彌生 | Dot Obsession-T.W.KEV 水玉強迫-T.W.KEV | Contemporary Day Auction | 2022 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

YAYOI KUSAMA
Dot Obsession-T.W.KEV, 2005
Acrylic on canvas
162×162 cm (63.7 x 63.7 inches)

(Infinity) Dots

Dots (Infinity Dots), 1990

INFINITY-DOTS (ENNZ), 2016

Christie’s New-York: 22 November 2024
Estimated: USD 1,000,000 – 1,500,000
USD 1,008,000

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929), INFINITY-DOTS (ENNZ) | Christie’s

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929)
INFINITY-DOTS (ENNZ), 2016
Acrylic on canvas
145.4 x 112.1 cm (57 1/4 x 44 1/8 inches)
Signed, titled and dated ‘YAYOI KUSAMA 2016 INFINITY-DOTS ENNZ’ (on the reverse)

INFINITY-DOTS (ENNZ) explodes outward with mesmeric intensity, captivating the viewer within its apparently limitless field of painted black dots variegating organically against a vibrant yellow background. In INFINITY-DOTS (ENNZ), Kusama unites the most significant themes of her extraordinary career into a poignant and mature retrospection of her celebrated oeuvre, establishing the ultimate spectacle in the artist’s incredible idiosyncratic artistic language. Kusama combines her iconic Infinity Nets and Pumpkins motifs in INFINITY-DOTS (ENNZ), creating a singular self-referential portrait employing her entire identity. Kusama began painting her Infinity Nets soon after her arrival in New York, first showing them in 1959. For her initial exposure to the Western art world, Kusama combined eastern and western styles to challenge the prevalent Abstract Expressionists with paintings pushing the limits of spatial conception. Her methodically rendered nets—constructed of meticulously repeated gestural strokes articulated as arcs of built up pigment across the canvas—speak to the artist’s technical facility and extraordinary physical stamina, which she skillfully employed to challenge then redefine the New York art scene. In the present work, she imbues this technique with her variegated black-on-yellow pattern typically reserved for her Pumpkin works, powerfully unifying her two great themes within a single tableau.

Infinity Dots (HTI), 2001

Phillips Hong-Kong: 30 March 2023
Estimated: HKD 25,000,000 – 30,000,000
HKD 27,675,000 / USD 3,525,523

Yayoi Kusama – 20th Century & Contempo… Lot 11 March 2023 | Phillips

In monumental effervescence, Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Dots (HTI) triumphs as one the largest of the artist’s canvases to ever appear in public auction. Spanning almost four metres wide and two metres in height, this larger-than-life triptych engulfs the audience in an infinite landscape: shimmering silver dots of various sizes and shades transcend their formalist nature to blanket the canvas in a rhythmic undulation. Pulsating and ever expanding, the poetic lattice confronts the viewer’s perception of space and time, capturing the stillness of a transient moment but simultaneously weaving the audience into a boundless mindscape. The translucent silver impasto resonates a weightless quality in sheer contrast with the obsessive pattern and overwhelming magnitude of the triptych, brilliantly offsetting reality. To behold this masterpiece is to be transported into the artist’s hypnotic universe, forever billowing, swelling, and receding.

Synonymous to Kusama’s distinguished artistic career, her dotted patterns have been exhaustively canonized in sculptures, prints, and canvases of various sizes. Completed almost five decades after her initial venture into the subject, the present work materializes the artist’s most determined vision and exhaustive practice in museum-grade exquisiteness. As a jewel of extreme scarcity, Infinity Dots (HTI) has never been auctioned but nevertheless enjoyed international acclaim when exhibited in Yayoi Kusama: Dots Obsession at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Sydney.

Dots, 1989

Poly Auction Hong-Kong: 7 April 2024
Estimated: HKD 1,800,000 – 2,800,000
HKD 2,160,000 / USD 276,144

Dots｜Poly Auction Hong Kong

YAYOI KUSAMA
Dots, 1989
Acrylic on canvas
32.3 x 41.2 cm. (12 1/2 x 16 inches)
Titled in Japanese; signed and dated ‘yayoi Kusama 1989’ (on the reverse)

Dots is a rare neon green canvas appearing in this year’s auction market. For Kusama, dots represent an accumulation of particles forming negative space within the net. Each polka dot represents a single particle among millions; its near obsessive repetition an expression of infinity. Upon closer inspection, one can distinguish the artist’s brush strokes and meticulous layering of paint on each dot, reflecting her desire to accumulate and self-obliterate into the universe through endless repetition. The vibrant color palette of the work creates dimension and variation, with each dot’s outline and subsequent coloring a consequence of Kusama’s painstaking attention to detail. This hand-painted element is a reminder of Kusama’s humanity and exploration of mortality, at once the essence of her Dots paintings, and of her obsessive repetition in her notion to multiply. The dots don’t end here, but beyond the boundaries of the canvas.

Summer Days, 2012

Ravenel Taiwan: 3 December 2023
Estimated: TWD 40,000,000 – 60,000,000
TWD 55,200,000 / USD 1,754,051

Ravenel | Yayoi KUSAMA《Summer Days》 Ravenel Autumn Auction 2023 Taipei Lot 229

YAYOI KUSAMA
Summer Days, 2012
Acrylic on canvas
112 x 145.5 cm
Signed on the reverse Yayoi KUSAMA, titled Summer Days in English and Japanese and dated 2012

Dots Obsession

Dots Obsession (TBAOQ), 2007

Christie’s New-York: 17 May 2024
Estimated: USD 800,000 – 1,200,000
USD 1,320,500

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929), Dots Obsession (TBAOQ) | Christie’s (christies.com)

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929)
Dots Obsession (TBAOQ), 2007
Acrylic on canvas
130.5 x 162.1 cm (51 3/8 x 63 7/8 inches)
Signed, titled and dated ‘Yayoi Kusama 2007 Dots Obsession TBAOQ’ (on the reverse)

Yayoi Kusama’s Dots Obsession (TBAOQ) offers a captivating glimpse into the artist’s lifelong exploration of the infinite depths within her own psyche. Swirling white dots, seemingly boundless, extend beyond the confines of the canvas, inviting viewers into a mesmerizing world that transcends both physical and psychological boundaries. Against a darkened backdrop, Kusama’s luminous dots serve as irresistible guides in a mysterious realm. Indeed, in the present lot, Kusama showcases her meticulous and ritualistic approach, seamlessly blending technical mastery with the expansive landscape of her subconscious mind.

Vincent Van Gogh, La nuit étoilée, 1888. Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Photo: © Gianni Dagli Orti / The Art Archive at Art Resource, New York.

Kusama’s paintings resonate with an arresting blend of physical presence and emotional depth, and the present lot is no exception. Employing a meticulous yet impassioned approach, she orchestrates a symphony of controlled brushstrokes, weaving intricate webs of silvery, atomized spheres that captivate the viewer’s imagination. In Dots Obsession (TBAOQ), the meticulous craftsmanship paradoxically yields forms imbued with a sense of organic vitality, reminiscent of the awe-inspiring beauty found in nature’s own miracles, be it the twinkling of stars or the delicate intricacy of snowflakes. In Kusama’s own words, “Polka dots are a way to infinity. When we obliterate nature and our bodies with polka dots, we become part of the unity of our environment, I become part of the eternal, and we obliterate ourselves in love.”  This concept of ‘self-obliteration’ extends beyond mere abstraction; it encompasses a profound dissolution of boundaries, including the artist’s own corporeal presence. Such transcendence is palpable in the vertiginous allure of the present lot, where every brushstroke hints at the profound mysteries of unity and boundless potential.

Beneath the mesmerizing whirl of circular motifs of Dots Obsession (TBAOQ), Kusama meticulously layers a brooding gradient of stormy tones, shifting between peaks of luminosity and depths of shadow across the canvas. It’s as though we witness supernovas blazing with brilliance in some areas, while the early formations of void-driven black holes emerge in others. Just as galaxies perpetually alter the fabric of our universe, Kusama’s infinity appears to be in constant flux. Enrapturing in scale and form, Yayoi Kusama’s Dots Obsession (TBAOQ) exudes a mesmerizing celestial beauty, testament to its meticulous execution and captivating allure.

Dots Obsession, 2004

Sotheby’s New-York: 16 November 2023
Estimated: USD 1,200,000 – 1,800,000
USD 1,391,000

Dots Obsession | Contemporary Day Auction | 2023 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

YAYOI KUSAMA (b. 1929)
Dots Obsession, 2004
Acrylic on canvas
145.4 x 146.1 cm (57 1/4 x 57 1/2 inches)
Signed, titled and dated 2004 (on the reverse)

Yayoi Kusama’s kaleidoscopic clusters reach their zenith in Dots Obsession, a large-scale example from the artist’s Dot series executed in 2004. A measured combination of white and gray polka dots undulates across the surface of the canvas creating a vertiginous illusion. Fastidious circles of varying sizes and tones cover every inch of canvas, pulsating with energy like organisms under a microscope. Rendered in grisaille, the present work ushers us through a looking glass into the hallucinatory visions that have plagued Kusama’s psyche since she was a little girl. Born in Matsumoto, Japan in 1929 to a merchant family who disapproved of her artistic aspirations, beginning at the age of 10 Yayoi Kusama would experience fleeting hallucinations; flashes of light, landscapes of dots and engulfing patterns would consume her field of vision. The artist famously recounted a childhood memory of a tablecloth with red flowers that tessellated onto the ceiling, walls and even her own body. Recalling her complete resignation to the hallucination, she says ‘the room, my body, the entire universe was filled with [patterns], my self was eliminated, and I had returned and been reduced to the infinity of eternal time and absolute space. This was not an illusion but a reality (Y. Kusama, quoted in L. Hoptman, Yayoi Kusama, London 2000, p. 36). To cope with her psychosomatic anxiety, Kusama obsessively painted her fearscapes resulting in a mesmerizing visual idiom of nets and dots stretching to infinity. She refers to this monotonous, yet cathartic, process as self-obliteration.

While far more compositionally complex than her early paintings, Dots Obsession, painted in 2004, hearkens back to Kusama’s earliest works from the 1950s. Over the course of 70 years, Kusama has steadfastly pursued themes of abstraction, ethereality and infiniteness with unerring continuity and unrelenting determination. She has refined her idiosyncratic and obsessive language, manipulating and multiplying her dots to the nth degree in large scale installation, painting, sculpture, fashion design and writing.

Dots-obsession [QZBA], 2007

Christie’s Paris: 19 October 2023
Estimated: EUR 700,000 – 1,000,000
EUR 1,431,500 / USD 1,513,053

Yayoi Kusama (née en 1929) (christies.com)

YAYOI KUSAMA (Born 1929)
Dots-obsession [QZBA], 2007
Acrylic on canvas
194×194 cm (76 3/8 x 76 3/8 inches)
Signed, titled and dated ‘Yayoi Kusama 2007 ”DOTS-OBSESSION QZBA”’ (on the reverse)

Dots are Yayoi Kusama’s obsession. For almost six decades, polka dots have consumed her world—and her art. For Kusama, these tiny repetitive forms reflect the boundlessness of the universe.

“Our earth is only one polka dot among a million stars in the cosmos.
Polka dots are a way to infinity.”

In DOTS-OBSESSION [QZBA] (2007), Kusama’s vast field of white dots demonstrates this idea. Like a constellation in the night sky, the spectacle seems as though it might continue endlessly. Executed in 2007, the work belongs to a series of the same title. Kusama’s Dots Obsession installations, begun in 1996, consist of polka-dot-covered balloons. In the associated paintings, her pale orbs seem to float in space, illuminated against the darkness. These works are closely related to Kusama’s celebrated “Infinity Nets”. She first showed these paintings shortly after her arrival in New York in 1957. They subsequently brought her success in Europe. Kusama’s years in America were defined by great emotional turmoil, and the repetitive act of painting eased her pain. In the “Infinity Nets”, the polka dots arose from the gaps between looping webs of paint. The present work builds upon the all-over surfaces of these compositions, recalling Kusama’s early links with Minimalism and Abstract Expressionism.

Dots Obsession (FOPMU), 2013

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 1 December 2022
Estimated: HKD 14,500,000 – 20,000,000
HKD 18,450,000 / USD 2,372,136

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929) (christies.com)

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929)
Dots Obsession (FOPMU), 2013
Acrylic on canvas
194×194 cm (76 3/8 x 76 3/8 inches)
Signed, titled and dated ‘FOPMU YAYOI KUSAMA 2013 DOTS OBSESSION’ (on the reverse)

“Polka dots are a way to infinity. When we obliterate nature and our bodies with polka dots, we become part of the unity of our environment, I become part of the eternal, and we obliterate ourselves in love.”

Dots Obsession, 1997

Bonhams New-York: 19 May 2022
Estimated: USD 250,000 – 450,000
USD 1,134,375

Bonhams : YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929) Dots Obsession 1997

A shimmering palette of sparkling gold, Dots Obsession (1997) is a captivating example of Yayoi Kusama’s most instantly recognizable motif. One of the most coveted artists of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, Kusama transcended two of the most cardinal contemporary art movements of Pop Art and Minimalism to become a bona fide pop culture icon. Her persona blurs artist and celebrity, and international exhibitions have solidified her as a contemporary behemoth with global appeal, attracting collectors worldwide. Today, Kusama is one of the few women who consistently rank amongst the highest-selling living artists. Employing a variety of media throughout her career, Kusama has worked across sculpture, film, fashion, literature, installation, and painting. Her oeuvre is unified by motifs, manifested through obsessive yet deliberate repetition. Kusama’s preoccupation with dots began as a child, when she began experiencing hallucinations that often involved fields of spots. She was terrified by the lucid visions of dots in dense patterns, auras, and flashes of bright lights that consumed her surroundings, and herself, to the point of annihilation, or, in her words, “self-obliteration”. Seeking solace through art, Kusama drew and painted as therapy. Those early hallucinations and the theme of dots would forever galvanize her work throughout her career.

Dots Obsession is an exceptional example of Kusama’s iconic motif. Created in 1997, it directly relates to the examples the artist developed on her arrival New York in the late 1950s. However, this series demonstrates more complexity of composition and shows an artist at the peak of her experimental powers. The delicate overlapping and interweaving of forms seen in the present work illustrates a mature expression of Kusama’s original motifs and concept, and manifests her themes of dots into a wholly otherworldly realm.

Within this glittering complex web of twinkling metallic orbs, Kusama has constructed a golden galaxy. Shimmering resplendent spheres hover and dance against the endless black ground creating a boundless space of jewel-like dots that almost appear to grow and reach organically beyond the limits of the painting. Kusama has created an infinite universe on a finite canvas: the result is hypnotic. The viewer becomes lost in Kusama’s spellbinding visual language and the rich depth of the complex, pulsating forms, spellbound by the finality of infiniteness.

The use of gold is particularly rare for Kusama, and no other work from this series has appeared at auction previously with this colorway. The astral atmosphere that the metallic color creates is balanced by Dots Obsession‘s deep rooted connections to art history. The finely and deliberately placed dots draw comparisons with Byzantine gold mosaics, evoking a holy sense of the divine and the majesty within Kusama’s universe. Austrian artist Gistav Klimt was also influenced by the splendor of these spectacular mosaics. Though infinitely abstract, the present work arouse echoes of Klimt’s masterpiece Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907), with its glimmering gold patterns and central theme of womanly divinity.

Dots Accumulation

Gold Accumulation (1), 1999

Phillips Hong-Kong: 1 December 2022
Estimated: HKD 8,000,000 – 12,000,000
HKD 9,930,000 / USD 1,276,710

Yayoi Kusama – 20th Century & Conte… Lot 15 December 2022 | Phillips

Intricate in its execution and instantly arresting, Gold Accumulation (1) is an exquisite example of Kusama’s iconic motif – the polka dot. Accumulated over time, circles of impasto lay atop of one another, varying in degrees of opacity. With some more translucent than others, these dots coalesce into a wave of pattern, coming alive as they breathe and shimmer as if stars under the night sky. These all-encompassing dots form a fluctuating visual field that moves beyond the picture plane, immersing the viewer within a delicate web of pure gold.

Painted in 1999, Gold Accumulation (1) marks the apex of a period when a major retrospective of Kusama’s works were shown in New York, Los Angeles and Tokyo, solidifying the artist’s international stardom and significance in the contemporary art world. The work was included as one of only two acrylic paintings in Galerie Pierre’s exhibition, Love Explosion: Yayoi Kusama After Ten Thousand Tribulations in Taichung. The exhibition also presented multimedia works by Kusama, including soft sculptures, paintings, and collages. Named after the luxurious color of gold, the current work bears auspicious meaning, and was the main focal point in Galerie Pierre’s exhibition as a new work at the time.

Dots Accumulation (WWPER), 2008

Phillips London: 2 March 2022
Estimated: GBP 800,000 – 1,200,000
GBP 930,000 / USD 1,238,843

Yayoi Kusama – 20th Century & Contempo… Lot 13 March 2022 | Phillips

Stunningly executed in jewel-like shades of red and green, Dots Accumulation (WWPER) is an exquisite example of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s central artistic motif – the polka dot. Telescoping between the cosmic and the cellular, Dots Accumulation (WWPER) fills our visual field with its infinite, psychedelic accumulations, the dots seeming to move beyond the picture plane to immerse us in their delicate web of pure color. Closely related to her celebrated Infinity Net series in its intricate, repeating, all-over pattern, Dots Accumulation (WWPER) captures the obsessional focus on accumulation, repetition, and the infinite that best characterizes Kusama’s internationally celebrated practice.

Now completely synonymous with the artist, Kusama first began to use polka dots at the very outset of her staggering 70-year career. Housed in The Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection, the 1952 ink on paperboard Accumulation is one of only a few examples of Kusama’s early work to survive and highlights its foundational role within her oeuvre. More than a visual strategy, the polka dot also embodies a profoundly personal narrative, emerging directly from the visual hallucinations that the artist has suffered from since childhood. Coupled with a strained and sometimes violent family dynamic, Kusama recalls standing in the vast fields of flowers that made up her family’s seed farm in the Matsumoto Prefecture, overwhelmed by their seemingly infinite expansion, she felt atomized among them. Sometimes accompanied by auditory hallucinations, these visions persisted. A favorite color in Kusama’s repertoire, the intricate red lattice work of this 2008 work visually recalls some of Kusama’s most iconic works from this period, immediately evoking the red polka dots of her 1965 Infinity Mirror Room – Phali’s Field.

Stars/Cosmos/Universe

Door to the Universe, 1995

Sotheby’s New-York: 19 May 2023
Estimated: USD 700,000 – 1,000,000
USD 1,330,500

Door to the Universe | Contemporary Day Auction | 2023 | Sotheby’s (sothebys.com)

YAYOI KUSAMA (b. 1929)
Door to the Universe, 1995
Acrylic on canvas
130.2 x 97.2 cm (51 1/4 x 38 1/4 inches)
Signed, dated 1995 and inscribed Cosmic Door in Japanese (on the reverse)

Yayoi Kusama’s Door to the Universe from 1995 beautifully encapsulates the artist’s iconic and uniquely obsessive language. The present work was painted at the height of Kusama’s newfound critical and public acclaim, created just two years after her groundbreaking exhibition at the Japanese pavilion of the 1993 Venice Biennale. Painted with a highly measured combination of white and gray, Door to the Universe pulsates with organic, meticulously applied constellation of small circles and curvaceous shapes. The circular shapes, which could be seen as an evolution of the artist’s signature motif – the polka dot – covers the entire canvas, injecting a feeling of movement into the composition. Kusama’s works, originate from a deeply personal and intimate place; at her arrival in New York in 1957 the artist encountered a tough, competitive city. Having been blighted by hallucinations since she was a child, Kusama used art making to channel and work through psychological hardship exacerbated by tough living conditions and an entirely alien environment.

“Unable to sleep, I would get out of bed and paint. There was no other way to endure the cold and the hunger so I pushed myself on to ever more intense work […] I often suffered episodes of severe neurosis. I would cover a canvas with nets, then continue painting them on the table, on the floor, and finally on my own body. As I repeated this process over and over again, the nets began to expand to infinity. I forgot about myself as they enveloped me, clinging to my arms and legs and clothes and filling the entire room.” 

The present work was created in Kusama’s native Japan, where she has lived and worked since the 1970s. Trained classically in Nihonga technique, the artist’s early work is inhabited by cell like structures, flowers and other shapes reminiscent of living organisms. Over time Kusama would refine these shapes, as shown by the rhythmic amalgamation of dots in the present work. Moreover, Kusama is fascinated by the idea of the universe and what lies within it. Indeed, the work’s title Door to the Universe, can be interpreted as a meditation on the nature of existence.

“My desire was to predict and measure the infinity of the unbounded universe, from my own position in it, with dots – an accumulation of particles forming the negative spaces in the net. How deep was the mystery? Did infinite infinities exist beyond our universe? In exploring these questions I wanted to examine the single dot that was my own life. One polka dot: a single particle among millions.”

Extensively considered Japan’s greatest living artist today, Kusama reveals her singular vision through various forms and media, exploring dot-like patterns in sculptures, paintings, happenings and films. A striking testament to the alluring and disorienting spatial complexity that has defined Kusama’s work for decades, Door to the Universe is an archetypal example from one of the most influential artists working today.

Cosmos (THOPS), 2008

Christie’s London: 13 October 2022
Estimated: GBP 300,000 – 500,000
GBP 831,600 / USD 923,130

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929) (christies.com)

YAYOI KUSAMA (B. 1929)
Cosmos (THOPS), 2008
Urethane resin on canvas
194×194 cm (76 3/8 x 76 3/8 inches)
Signed, titled and dated ‘COSMOS YAYOI KUSAMA 2008 (THOPS)’ (on the reverse)

With its dynamic dance of silver discs amid a celestial expanse of cobalt blue, Cosmos (THOPS) (2008) is a mesmerising example of the polka-dot motif that is among Yayoi Kusama’s most iconic themes. Where the dots in her first ‘Infinity Net’ paintings proliferated in dense webs of impastoed surface, later works such as the present see them expand in size and condense to a serene regularity, bespeaking a tranquil state of contemplation. At almost two meters in width and height, the present canvas offers a hypnotic vista of bold shape and color. The surface’s seamless perfection was achieved used urethane resin paint, a hard, glossy pigment that Kusama also uses in many of her large-scale sculptures. Rather than following any rigid system, the metallic circles are arranged organically, their three discrete sizes creating a mutual pulsation as if each holds its own gravitational field. While driven partly by the memory of phantasmagoric visions she suffered during her childhood, Kusama’s dots ultimately go beyond the biographical, evoking vast, unfathomable forces that lie outside the limits of human imagination. The present work was created during a triumphant period in the new millennium, shortly after she was awarded the 2006 Praemium Imperiale for Painting, Japan’s most prestigious international art prize.

SUMMER-STARS (QPTW), 2007

Phillips Hong-Kong: 29 November 2021
Estimated: HKD 4,500,000 – 6,500,000
HKD 10,898,000 / USD 1,397,322

Yayoi Kusama – 20th Century & Cont… Lot 189 November 2021 | Phillips

The current work, Summer-Stars QPTW, is a rarely seen piece. Featuring the polka dot, the most persistent motif in Kusama’s career, the work evokes the erect joy of her large sculptures of flowers and pumpkins. Bathed in red, the dots appear as individual cells, variously colored and sized. Emerging from a pool of blood, the orbs are vaguely suggestive of pathogenic microbes in perpetual multiplication, appearing also as celestial bodies tangentially related by gravitational pull and orbit. The dots expand and contract, in midst of creation and decay, succinctly describing the very foundation of Kusama’s art: dissolution and accumulation; propagation and separation; particulate obliteration and unseen reverberations from the universe.

Buds

Buds, 1987

Christie’s Hong-Kong: 28 May 2024
Estimated: HKD 20,000,000 – 30,000,000
HKD 23,970,000 / USD 3,068,749

Buds (christies.com)

YAYOI KUSAMA (b. 1929)
Buds, 1987
Acrylic on canvas (triptych)
Each: 194×130 cm (76 3/8 x 11 3/4 inches)
Overall: 194×390 cm (76 3/8 x 153 1/2 inches)
Signed, titled, and dated ‘BUDS 1987 YAYOI KUSAMA’ (on the reverse of panel 1/3)
Signed, titled, and dated ‘YAYOI KUSAMA 1987 BUDS’ (on the reverse of panel 2/3)
Signed, titled, and dated ‘BUDS YAYOI KUSAMA 1987 Yayoi Kusama’ (on the reverse of panel 3/3)

Titled Buds, Yayoi Kusama breathed life into the organic, tadpole-like forms in the present work with hope and vitality. When observed up close, these pulsating forms represent the purest forms of life, evocative of swimming tadpoles or pullulating seeds. Sharing an identical composition with another piece titled Imagery of Human Being (1987), the present work evokes fecundity and growth—as each seed represents an innate equal possibility that invokes the justice of the origin of life where chances prevail. Though different by default, these original life forms coexist peacefully within the same realm, expressing inaudibly Kusama’s yearning hope for a ‘new Garden of Eden’. As we step back, the organic forms give a microscopic image of vivacity—a cosmic wonder where individual life grows and regenerates while remaining interconnected in the universe.

Buds was painted in 1987, a pivotal year where Kusama had her first retrospective exhibition held in her homeland at Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, Japan. After a decade of being hailed as ‘The Queen of Scandal’, it was the year where Kusama triumphed by the public with renewed perspective of her art practice. Around that few years the artist expanded her creative endeavors beyond the realm of visual arts and ventured into literatures—seven novels were released between 1983-1990, demarcating a phase brimming with an abundance of ideas, thoughts, and productiveness, all of which casts a light on the formation of this new seed-like motif. It is one that alludes to her celebrated nets and polka dots, yet more tangible and associable. The present work earned its inclusion in the retrospective of the artist held in 1992 at the Sogetsu Art Museum in Tokyo, as well as the blockbuster solo exhibition co-organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Japan Foundation at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo in 1999.

Joan Miro, La Poétesse, 1940/1959. Centre Pompidou, Paris © Successió Miró / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris 2024. Photo: © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. GrandPalaisRmn / Audrey Laurans

Expanding upon her artistic practice in the late 1970s, Kusama employs acrylic in the present work, a soluble medium characterized by its fast-drying qualities which allows the artist to materialize her ideas with greater immediacy. The flatness the medium created also speaks to Kusama’s foundational training in nihonga. The overpopulated composition as well foretold the emergence of the Superflat movement championed by Murakami in the 1990s. Executed in simple lines and monochromatic colors, Buds translated an unspoken volume with their unassuming forms. By proliferating the most original form of life on her canvas, it insinuates subtly the concept of nurturing motherhood, traditionally associated with the female figure as the carrier of life.

With their unique resemblance to living organisms, the organic subjects present themselves as a collective portrait—a vignette of humanhood observed from afar. The grouping of these subjects, some more densely clustered while others appear dispersed, creates an undulating sense of rhythmic flow and movement on the canvas, fostering a fluid composition that harkens back to Kusama’s iconic infinity nets. Rather than being isolated, they intertwine and interact, forming a cohesive visual flow across three panels. This interconnectedness highlights the intricate and inseparable connection among the lives in the world, while at the same time examining the humility of each individual within the universe.  As an allegory of life and hope, Buds represented Kusama’s unadulterated belief in the cathartic powers of art, both for herself and the viewers. Through skillfully crystallizing the abstract ideas of self-obliteration and healing with recognizable organic forms, the present work captures a rare image of a palpable motif that inhabits the pictorial space with a ferocious vigor interacting through its illusionary sense of movement, offering a transcendental, relatable, and immersive experience to audiences alike.