Yayoi Kusama's Pumpkin (White Y) (1992) takes the elongated, tall configuration of the pumpkin and renders it in white on black — the form rising the full height of the image, its three central ribs long and parallel, the black dots ranging from tiny marks along the outer edges to large circles down the central columns in a sequence more dramatic than any other work in the 1992 series. The white of the pumpkin has an almost X-ray quality against the dark field behind — the form present as light rather than as colour, the dots appearing as black marks on white that describe the volume with a precision that feels clinical and intimate at the same time. The outer edges of the pumpkin are defined by a fine line of tiny dots that traces the full perimeter of the form, giving it a boundary that the colour works achieve through chromatic contrast alone.

The dark field behind is filled with a white structure of irregular shapes — smaller and more densely packed than in the earlier 1992 white works, the background pressing in from every direction with a tightness that reduces the breathing space around the pumpkin to a narrow margin. The form occupies the centre of the image with an authority that comes from its scale and its upright posture — the pumpkin standing rather than sitting, the Y designation suggesting the particular elongated proportion of this configuration. The 1992 works in black and white represent the most reduced point in the pumpkin series — no colour, no warmth, nothing between the viewer and the structure of the mark itself. Kusama was in her early sixties, working in Tokyo, and the rigour of these monochrome works has the quality of a statement — the same form, stripped of everything except the dots.

For more information or to buy Pumpkin (White Y) by Yayoi Kusama, contact our specialists using the enquiry button above.