Hat
Medium: Screen-print in colors on Peche Soleil paper
[2 screens, 2 colors, 2 runs]
Year: 1983
Image: 45 x 52.5 cm (17.7 x 20.7 inches)
Sheet: 55.5 x 64.3 cm (21.9 x 25.3 inches)
Edition: 100
Artist’s Proofs: 10 AP
Printer’s Proofs: 3 PP
Printer: Okabe Tokuzo, Tokyo
Literature: ABE 21
ABE Publishing Ltd., Yayoi Kusama: Prints 1979-2017, Tokyo, 2017, Number 21, Illustrated page 23
Signed, dated, and numbered in pencil on lower edge
Hat belongs to Yayoi Kusama’s sustained exploration of clothing as a psychological and symbolic extension of the self. The composition presents a wide-brimmed hat seen frontally, isolated against a black ground entirely animated by a dense, irregular network pattern. Rendered in a stark red-and-white palette, the hat is constructed through alternating bands of polka dots, graphic textures, and linear motifs, each clearly delineated yet visually interlocked.
Technically, the print demonstrates Kusama’s early mastery of graphic reduction and repetition in her printmaking practice. The dots vary in size and density, creating a rhythmic articulation of volume while flattening the form into a highly legible, almost diagrammatic image. The surrounding net-like background, already a central element in her work by this period, functions as an all-over field that both frames and destabilizes the central motif, preventing any sense of spatial depth or narrative setting.
For Kusama, the hat operates as more than an accessory. For the artist, garments often signify identity, protection, and social codes. Here, the hat becomes a container-like form, hovering between ornament and enclosure. The repetitive patterns that cover it suggest both decoration and obsession, aligning the image with Kusama’s broader engagement with self-obliteration, accumulation, and psychological control.
Produced in 1983, this print predates the full codification of the pumpkin as Kusama’s dominant icon and offers insight into how everyday objects served as early vehicles for her visual language. The hat functions as a transitional motif, allowing Kusama to explore repetition, surface saturation, and symbolic containment within a familiar form. The result is a work that is visually assertive yet conceptually restrained, firmly situating the print within the artist’s mature graphic vocabulary of the early 1980s.
Auction Results
New Auction: 28 June 2025
Estimated: JPY 1,800,000 – 2,800,000
JPY 1,947,000 / USD 13,465
YAYOI KUSAMA (1929-)
Hat (Kusama 21), 1983
Screenprint
Signed, titled, dated and numbered
From the edition of 100
SBI Art Auction: 28 January 2023
Estimated: JPY 1,500,000 – 2,500,000
JPY 4,140,000 / USD 31,880
YAYOI KUSAMA
Hat (Kusama 21), 1983
Screenprint
Signed, titled, dated and numbered
From the edition of 100
K Auction Seoul: 27 April 2022
Estimated: KRW 30,000,000 – 50,000,000
KRW 30,000,000 (Hammer)
KRW 34,500,000 / USD 27,365
YAYOI KUSAMA
Hat, 1983
Screenprint
Signed, dated, titled and numbered on the recto
Christie’s Hong-Kong: 29 March 2019
Estimated: HKD 100,000 – 200,000
HKD 250,000 / USD 31,845
YAYOI KUSAMA(JAPAN, B. 1929)
Hat, 1983
Screen-print
Numbered, dated and signed ‘9/100 1983 yayoi Kusama’; titled in Japanese (lower edge)