(born Matsumoto, Japan in 1929) Pumpkin, on the base titled, signed, dated Yayoi Kusama 1981, mixed media with painted papier mâché, height 38 cm, diameter 40 cm, (PP)

The work is registered with the Yayoi Kusama Studio, Japan under the no. 1640 (registration card available)

Provenance:
Galleria del Naviglio, Milan
Private Collection, Italy

Exhibition:
Milan, Yayoi Kusama, Galleria del Naviglio,1982

The bulbous speckled Pumpkin is a symbol of the artist herself, embodying Kusama’s long-running investigations into personal identity and experience through her art. The solid, hearty vegetable of the earth, compellingly paired with her signature black dots, is one of the artist’s most iconic and beloved motifs. Kusama’s Pumpkins were the focus of the artist’s exhibition at the Japanese pavilion at the Venice biennale 1993 which consisted of an installation in which the artist lived, a mirrored room filled with small Pumpkin sculptures.
At once profoundly autobiographical and surreal, the psychedelic quality of the hypnotic formations in Pumpkin is informed by the intensely personal quality of Kusama’s work. A reiteration of the artist’s earliest childhood experiences, the proliferation of dots references the overwhelming visual hallucinations the artist experienced as a child. Having returned to Japan in the early 1970s, by 1977 the hallucinations that had plagued the artist as a child had returned, prompting her to voluntarily commit herself permanently to hospital for her psychological ailments, where she has lived since. This move was directly reflected in her artistic practice, which was marked with a return to painting and object making, following her critically renowned Happenings from the decade prior.