No. G.A. White, 1960
Oil on canvas
128.3×130.8 cm (50.5×51.5 inches)
Signed, titled and dated ‘1960 NO. G.A. WHITE YAYOI KUSAMA’ (on the reverse)

Provenance
Gres Gallery, Washington D.C.
Acquired from the above by the present owner, 1960

Christie’s New-York: 10 May 2010
USD 3,330,500

Source: Christie’s
Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929) (christies.com)

Painted in 1960, No. G.A. White is a striking example of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Nets, in which she combines lace-like painting with swathes of impasto to produce a work of touching delicacy. The painting was acquired in 1960 by Mrs. Mary Louise Freeman. She was friends with Eleanor Biddle Lloyd, known to all as Lallie Lloyd, a founder of the Washington Gallery of Modern Art and longtime chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania. Mrs. Lloyd was already a collector of Kusama’s work, having owned the artist’s stunning green work No. F. In the spring of 1960, they visited one of Kusama’s first U.S. solo shows at the Gres Gallery in Washington D.C. The show received rave reviews, with The Washington Post describing it as “outstanding”, and, on Mrs. Lloyd’s recommendation, Mrs. Freeman acquired the present lot, No. G.A. White, which has since held pride of place in the family home for almost fifty years.