Acrylic on canvas

18 × 14 cm. 7 1/8 × 5 1/2 in.

Signed in English, dated and titled in Japanese on the reverse
PROVENANCE
2 Dec 2018, Ravenel Taipei Autumn Auction, Lot 220
Acquired directly by present important Asian collector from the above

This work is accompanied with a registration card issued by Yayoi Kusama studio

All Encompassing, In Praise of the Miracle of Life
Essential Artistic Language of Yayoi Kusama in the 1990s

In the 1990s, Yayoi Kusama created works that were a marked departure from her earlier art, uniquely rich in creative energy, original in subject matter, composition and color, leading to the global “Kusama heat” that continues to the present. On this occasion, two of the artist's works are to be auctioned Fruits (Lot 44) and Flowers (Lot 43). Both of these paintings were produced in 1996, a time when Kusama's international reputation and artistic renown were at their pinnacle. They also represent a rare combination of the artist's most sought after “infinity nets,” “round dots,” “flowers” and fruit basket” elements and when compared to works in the same series have a richer language and higher degree of excellence. This is also the first time Fruits has been seen in public, making its appearance a memorable event.

Fresh in Your Face Colors, Life Force That Fills Heaven and Earth: Fruits

From the late 1980s to the early 1990s “fruit” motifs appeared regularly in the paintings of Yayoi Kusama. However, whereas in the early period these had monochromatic hues and small containers or vessels, Fruits painted in 1998 showcases bright colors, cohesive and complex image texture, solid and self confident scene structure and a vast breadth of spirit that underscored that way in which Kusama's artistic career scaled new peaks in the 1990s. Indeed, through the adoption of a dual core based on infinity nets and round dots her one time creative combination of classical semiotics and colors transformed traditional still life paintings into image experiences of “infinite proliferation.”

Classical Feast: Fantastic Fun in Repetition

The work Fruits has a black background with a pink triangular net pattern that establishes a calm tone highlighting the foreground. The vital and fantastical colors of the objects at the front of the work make them the visual focal point of the piece. In the lower part of the painting, the red surface of the table blocks the progression of the black background and creates a special perspective effect at the bottom of the fruit basket, causing viewers to move back and forth between reality and fantasy as if in a colorful visual labyrinth. This visual leaping and color combinations brim with lively and vivid rhythms that bring to mind Fauvist master Henri Matisse's cut-out collage work The Creole Dancer.

Fruits also highlights Kusama's ingenious layout and detailed changes. For example, in the depiction of grapes, she uses round dots that serve as a directional guide and the nine grapes are made up of three different concentric circle arrangements, with the round circles ranging from large to small. At the same time, the circular evolution of the layers strengthens the three dimensional feel of the fruit, which in concert with changes in color amid repetition and transformation highlights fun combinations.

New Color Makeup: A Pandora's Box of Hope

In crafting concrete objects, Yayoi Kusama has never been limited by the preexisting color of the real world item depicted. Instead, she boldly selects colors that are richly feminine, for example by using highly saturated purple to construct the space inside the basket, which together with bright Turkish blue wave points, saturated colors and orderly changes in size, create a lively and energetic atmosphere. Indeed, it is almost as if it is not a fruit basket filled with fruit but rather a Pandora's Box brimming with novelties and hope. Kusama has said: “My life is also a point/dot, one dot out of hundreds of millions of particles.” The lively wave points in the fruit basket are akin to organic particles that make up all living things, with the rich and varied boundless universe transformed into colorful fruit in a basket. In this context, the muskmelon pedicel reaching beyond the basket highlights the idea of free thinking that extends beyond any restraints placed on it. The scene sings the praises of the gorgeous variation of life, hope and ultimate freedom.

A Cacophony of Brilliant Color: Flowers

Yayoi Kusama was born into a family that ran a plant seed wholesale business and as a child her life revolved around a wide range of flowers, fruit and vegetables. In consequence, the honest and cute “pumpkins” and all manner of “flowers” were the soil that provided her with spiritual comfort and nurtured her artistic creativity. In 1939, at the age of 10, Kusama started painting after having a vision. In her autobiography she wrote: “One day, I saw the whole room, my body and the entire universe had been covered with red flowers and in that instant my soul was washed clean.” Clearly, “flowers” have played a unique role in the artist's life.

The work Flowers is a testament to the explosion of this unique energy; the black center of the yellow grid segments, the way the flowers stand upright against the background, the three anthropomorphized flowers surging upwards and their thick stalks decorated with checkered pattern and leaves of the same color, together supporting three huge tri-color flowers. In terms of the flowers themselves, Kusama uses different sized round dots and through orderly arrangement and rhythm imbues the flowers with a simple and honest mass, thereby highlighting the shape of the plants. The different size round dots in the painting are like the molecular structure that makes up all living things and the artist reveals these one by one through her own magical language, which is based on in depth observations of the natural world. It is this that imbues Kusama's painted visual illusions with such a powerful sense of reality.

Nature Inverted, Talent of the Queen

Kusama does not use overlapping textures in place of changes in color or exchange spatial turning for divided color blocks, but rather speaks to the world in her own inimical “personal flower language”: within the borderless background depicted by the boundless net pattern, we see the elements of the artist's classical language in one form – the upright flowers in five colors, like a “perspective drawing” of nature observed, clearly showcasing the inner context of flower growth, while the yellow grid structure at the back is almost like a microscopic image of the yellow flower at the center of the painting. At the same time, the flowers are like little giants, exuding all the colors of life while tenaciously demonstrating an utterly fearless spirit and “the truth of life” -- a portrayal of an artist whose career rebounded after a ebbing.

Together the background, table surface, vessel and flowers create about 10 types of pattern styles closely associated with Yayoi Kusama. Within this rational construct there is an neat presentation, framing a 20th century modern feel, showcasing this avant-garde queen at the forefront of the times as the most colorful and eye catching “flower” blossoming!

Price estimate:
HKD: 1,700,000 - 2,500,000
USD: 218,400 - 321,200

Auction Result:
HKD: 4,680,000