Yayoi Kusama // Pumpkin (TOWSSO), 2006

  • Yayoi Kusama, Pumpkin [TOWSSO], 2006. Acrylic on canvas, 22.3 × 27.4 cm. A small-scale painting of Kusama’s iconic pumpkin motif, merging playfulness with psychological depth.
    Pumpkin [TOWSSO], 2006
    Acrylic on canvas, 22.3 × 27.4 cm (8 3⁄4 × 10 3⁄4 in.)
    © Yayoi Kusama. Image reproduced for educational and informational purposes only. 
    Back to Yayoi Kusama Originals page
     
    Painted in 2006, Pumpkin [TOWSSO] illustrates the continued centrality of the pumpkin motif within Kusama’s practice. Even at a modest scale, the canvas carries the same symbolic force as her monumental sculptures and immersive installations. The repeated dots and curved organic form transform the humble vegetable into an emblem of resilience, humour, and universality.
     
    By the 2000s, the pumpkin had become inseparable from Kusama’s global identity, appearing in paintings, mirrored rooms, outdoor sculptures, and large-scale commissions. In Pumpkin [TOWSSO], she channels the motif’s playful qualities while also embedding it with psychological depth, reminding viewers of its roots in her childhood memories and its role as a personal talisman.

  • “I love pumpkins because of their humorous form, warm feeling, and a human-like quality.”

     – Yayoi Kusama

    This painting underscores how the pumpkin bridges Kusama’s earliest experiments with pattern and her mature international acclaim, uniting the personal with the iconic in a form that continues to resonate worldwide. From her first depictions of pumpkins in postwar Japan to their re-emergence in the 1970s and their monumental presence in later decades, the motif has traced the arc of her career. In works like Pumpkin [TOWSSO], the subject encapsulates Kusama’s ability to transform private memory into a universal emblem, one that speaks simultaneously to humour, comfort, resilience, and infinity.