Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama has died at the age of 97, just over two weeks before a major retrospective of her work opens at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
Her death turns the upcoming exhibition, which was already scheduled, into a posthumous tribute to her career.
Born in Matsumoto in 1929, Kusama began drawing as a child, channelling hallucinations into the nets, dots, pumpkins, and mirrored infinity rooms that later defined her art.
A life dedicated to art
Kusama moved to New York in the late 1950s and became a central figure in the city’s avant-garde art scene before returning to Japan in 1973.
In 1977, she voluntarily took up residence in a Tokyo psychiatric hospital, living there for the rest of her life while working daily in a nearby studio.
Her studio confirmed that she continued to paint until her final days, never setting aside her brush.
The Amsterdam retrospective
The Stedelijk exhibition opens on September 11 and runs until January 17, marking the final stop of a European tour that began near Basel and visited Cologne.
The show features more than 300 works spanning over 70 years, including new installations made for the exhibition and pieces never before shown in Europe.
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