Pumpkin (2)

Medium: Screenprint in colors on Izumi paper
[3 screens, 2 colors, 3 runs]
Year: 1990
Image: 52.5 x 45.4 cm (20.7 x 17.9 inches)
Sheet: 63×53 cm (24.8 x 20.9 inches)
Edition: 150
Artist’s Proofs: 15 AP
Printer’s Proofs: 3 PP
Printer: Okabe Tokuzo, Japan
Literature: ABE 144
Yayoi Kusama Prints 1979-2017, ABE PUBLISHING LTD, Number 144, Illustrated page 94

Signed, dated, and numbered in pencil on lower edge

 

Pumpkin (2) depicts a single pumpkin covered in the artist’s iconic polka dots, set against a background also filled with intricate patterns, likely dots or an “infinity net”. The composition uses vibrant colors, and the interplay of the patterns creates a sense of the pumpkin’s “living energy”. The dots simultaneously define the form of the pumpkin and seem to “obliterate” it, transforming the object into a collection of infinite elements. The pumpkin motif holds a deeply personal significance for Kusama, dating back to her childhood in rural Japan, where her family were seed sellers.

To Yayoi Kusama, pumpkins represent:

• Comfort and solace: They provided her with a sense of safety and joy during difficult times
• Humor and humbleness: She admires their unpretentious and amusing forms
• The infinite and self-obliteration: The repetitive dots on the pumpkin and background relate to the hallucinations Kusama experiences due to mental illness, where she feels her self expanding into the universe, or “obliterated” by endless patterns. This connects personal experience with universal themes of life and death, or the cell and the cosmos.

Pumpkin (2) was released in 1990. This period marked a return to prominence for Kusama, as she had voluntarily lived in a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo since 1977. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, she began to widely incorporate the pumpkin motif into her paintings, prints, and installations. Her major public re-introduction to the global art scene was representing Japan at the 1993 Venice Biennale with an exhibition featuring a mirrored room filled with pumpkins, cementing the motif’s iconic status in her oeuvre.

 

 

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Auction Results

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K Auction: 29 October 2025
Estimated: KRW 70,000,000 – 150,000,000
KRW 92,000,000 (Hammer)
KRW 105,800,000 / USD 74,165

YAYOI KUSAMA
Pumpkin (2) (Abe 144), 1990
Screenprint
Signed, titled, dated and numbered 104/150 on the front

SBI Art Auction: 25 January 2025
Estimated: JPY 5,000,000 – 8,000,000
JPY 8,625,000 / USD 55,280

YAYOI KUSAMA
Pumpkin (2),  1990
Screenprint
Signed, titled, dated and numbered
From the edition of 150

Mainichi Auction: 19 October 2024
Estimated: JPY 5,000,000 – 7,000,000
JPY 8,050,000 / USD 53,840

YAYOI KUSAMA
Pumpkin (2), 1990
Screenprint
Signed, from the edition of 150

K Auction Seoul: 22 May 2024
Estimated: KRW 93,000,000 – 150,000,000
KRW 108,345,000 / USD 79,415

YAYOI KUSAMA
Pumpkin (2), 1990
Screenprint
Signed, dated, titled and numbered 28/150 on the front

Mainichi Auction: 15 March 2024
Estimated: JPY 5,000,000 – 7,000,000
JPY 8,050,000 / USD 54,320

YAYOI KUSAMA
Pumpkin (2), 1990
Screenprint
Signed, from the edition of 150

K Auction Seoul: 23 August 2023
Estimated: KRW 97,000,000 – 150,000,000
KRW 111,550,000 / USD 83,215

YAYOI KUSAMA
Pumpkin (2), 1990
Screenprint
Signed, dated, titled and numbered ‘AP’ on the front
An artist’s proof aside from the edition of 150

Mainichi Auction: 29 April 2023
Estimated: JPY 4,000,000 – 6,000,000
JPY 10,350,000 / USD 75,962

YAYOI KUSAMA
Pumpkin (2), 1990
Screenprint
Signed, from the edition of 150

K Auction Seoul: 29 March 2023
Estimated: KRW 88,000,000 – 150,000,000
KRW 111,200,000 / USD 78,025

YAYOI KUSAMA
Pumpkin (2), 1990
Screenprint
Signed, dated, titled and numbered 62/150 on the front

Phillips Hong-Kong: 30 November 2022
Estimated: HKD 400,000 – 600,000
HKD 604,800 / USD 77,565

Mainichi Auction: 16 July 2022
Estimated: JPY 5,000,000 – 7,000,000
JPY 9,300,000 / USD 67,144 (Hammer)

YAYOI KUSAMA
Pumpkin (2), 1990
Screenprint
Signed, from the edition of 150

Seoul Auction: 28 June 2022
Estimated: KRW 100,000,000 – 150,000,000
KRW 141,600,000 / USD 110,065

YAYOI KUSAMA
Pumpkin (2), 1990
Silkscreen print on Izumi paper
Signed, titled, numbered 104/150 and dated along the lower edge

K Auction: 23 March 2022
Estimated: KRW 85,000,000 – 150,000,000
KRW 145,000,000 (Hammer)
KRW 168,925,000 / USD 138,685

YAYOI KUSAMA
Pumpkin (2), 1990
Screenprint
Signed, dated, titled and numbered 62/150 on the front

Sotheby’s Hong-Kong: 15 September 2020
Estimated: HKD 120,000 – 180,000
HKS 212,500 / USD 28,250

YAYOI KUSAMA
PUMPKIN (2), 1990
Screenprint
Signed, titled in Japanese, dated 1990 and numbered 142/150