E xecuted in 1998, Pumpkin is a spellbinding, flawlessly executed archetype from Yayoi Kusama’s oeuvre – a test.mes nt to her astonishing dedication to creation, technique, and a singular artistic vision. Plump and full, the pumpkin of the present work is an exceptionally rare example of her most favoured motif with a coiling vine. It is the only canvas to have ever appeared at auction to date with this distinct characteristic; straight or gently tilted vines are most often seen. In Japan, Kabocha are severed from their vines before attaining full maturity and left to ripen off the vine. This physical untethering of the fruit from the earth informs the sense of overpowering, endless expansion conveyed by Pumpkin’s vine.

Executed in 1998, Pumpkin was made during a pivotal year of the artist's career. In Kusama’s career, 1998-1999 could be considered one of the peaks of her institutional and commercial exposure; half of the 46 shows held over the two years were solo exhibitions. While Kusama checked herself into a psychiatric hospital the year before, she remained extremely active in artistic output. The same year she painted the present work, Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958-1968 opened and travelled from LACMA to MoMA in New York, the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo. It was regarded at the t.mes as the most significant retrospective since Alexandra Munroe curated Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective at the Centre for International Contemporary Arts in New York in 1989.

One of the most recognisable icons in contemporary art, Kusama’s pumpkin is deeply central to the artist’s psyche, and its origins in her art can be traced back to her earliest years. In 1948, three years after the war ended, a 19-year-old Kusama enrolled in a fourth-year course at Kyoto City Senior High School of Art. “During my t.mes in Kyoto I diligently painted pumpkins”, wrote the artist, “which in later years would become an important theme in my art” (Kusama Yayoi, Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama, trans. Ralph McCarthy, Tate Publishing, 2011, p. 75). Kusama recalls having consumed the vegetable endlessly to the point of nausea in her childhood years during and after the war; in spite of this, she retains a fond attachment to its organic bulbous form, describings it as embodying a “generous unpretentiousness” and “solid spiritual balance” (Ibid., p. 76). Already experiencing hallucinations at the t.mes , involving pumpkins that spoke to her in a most animated manner, Kusama found the gourd a benign and nurturing subject – as opposed to the more traumatic and menacing feelings she associates with flowers, plants and objects that plagued her throughout her life.

Kusama’s early pumpkins were painted with traditional Nihonga materials, which she left behind after her move from Matsumoto to New York in 1958. Within only eighteen months of her arrival, Kusama stunned the New York art scene with her radical Infinity Nets in 1959, executed in the Western medium of oil, which were followed by her Accumulation soft sculptures in 1961. In 1965 Kusama infused explosions of colour into her sculptures through the use of dotted and striped fabrics; by this t.mes , the sheer breadth, scale and ambition of her diverse cross-media oeuvre had taken over the city like an epidemic. Her ubiquitous polka-dot and net motifs, manifested in mesmeric paintings, immersive rooms, hypnotic installations, body art and participatory performances, forged a wholly unique aesthetic that articulated a rigorous, overwhelming language of obsession and obliteration – a language that enabled the artist to combat her hallucinatory mental illness. The artist reflects: “I use my complexes and fears as subjects. I make them and make them and then keep on making them, until I bury myself in the process. I call this ‘obliteration’” (Kusama Yayoi, cited in Mignon Nixon, ‘Infinity Politics’, in Francis Morris (ed.), Yayoi Kusama, Tate Publishing, 2012, p. 180).

After an explosive rise to fame in New York in the 1960s, Kusama returned to Japan in 1973, withdrawing into a period of semi-obscurity whilst quietly amassing a prolific body of work. It was during this t.mes that Kusama revisited her earlier pumpkin motif, combining her signature all-over Nets and obliterating polka-dot aesthetic with the theme of her favourite gourd. During the 1980s, Kusama explored colourful variations of her pumpkin-pattern in two-dimensional paintings, drawings and prints; over the years, her rendering of pumpkin ‘skin’ grew ever more deft and accomplished, with the flowing lines of dots advancing and receding rhythmically in a fastidios usly precise yet dynamically organic manner. Even the seemingly blank or ‘undotted’ segments are overlaid with miniscule specks, contributing to a complex, intensely laborious configuration that pulsates and disorients with an energy akin to that of Op art paintings.

Pumpkin (1990) was painted by Kusama and sold through Gallery Te, Tokyo, which was one of the very first galleries to sell Kusama’s artworks in the 1980s, along with Fuji Television Gallery. Painted in 1990, it coincided with a very public resurgence for the artist: her first New York retrospective in 1989 at the Centre for International Contemporary Arts, which signified a major revival of American and European interest in Kusama’s work, and became the first Japanese artist to grace the cover of Art in America that very same year. Paralleling this revival was a reevaluation of her work in Japan: just a year after Pumpkin (1990) was created, Kusama’s landmark exhibition Mirror Room (Pumpkin) was shown at the Fuji Television Gallery and the Hara Museum in Tokyo, which went on to be exhibited at the 45th Venice Biennale in 1993. Kusama was the first Japanese woman artist in the history of the Biennale to be granted a solo exhibition at the prestigious event.

The pumpkin stands as a symbol of triumph for the artist’s personal and artistic rebirth, representing a mediation of her psychiatric illness that went hand in hand with the ever-increasing sophistication, dexterity, and creativity of her creations. As Alexandra Munroe writes, Kusama’s art requires her “not only to surrender to madness but also to triumph over it; trauma must be substantially transformed before it can communicate to others as beauty and meaning” (Alexandra Munroe, ‘Between Heaven and earth: The Literary Art of Yayoi Kusama’, in Exh. Cat. Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama 1958-1968, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1998, p. 81).

《捲 蒂南瓜》作於1998年，畫面繁密嚴謹、迷幻懾人，是草間彌生南瓜畫中的佼佼佳作，見證這位名動天下的藝術家數十年來孜孜不倦，持續創作和專注磨礪技法的努力，以及她舉世無雙的藝術視野。本作再度採用草間彌生最熱愛的創作主題，但畫中的南瓜藤蔓盤繞，極為罕見。這幅作品是迄今為止唯一一幅出現在拍賣會上具有此獨特特徵的南瓜畫作；草間的南瓜畫布作品裡，南瓜蒂通常是以筆挺或略微傾斜的狀態呈現。在日本，南瓜會在完全成熟前從藤蔓上被摘下，讓其脫離藤蔓繼續成熟。這種果實脫離土壤且繼續成長的自然過程，凸顯了本作中的南瓜捲蒂所傳遞的蓬勃生命力。

《捲蒂南瓜》繪於1998年，正值草間的一個職業生涯高峰。她雖於前一年入住精神病院治療，卻不阻其高產量創作。橫跨1998年和1999年的兩年間，草間合共舉辦了46場展覽，當中半數為個展，且不乏大型博物館回顧展，1998年開幕的〈永恆的愛：草間彌生，1958-1968年〉 則為一例。該展覽從洛杉磯郡立藝術館 ( LACMA）巡展至紐約現代藝術博物館（MoMA），明尼阿波利斯沃克藝術中心 (The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis) ，並以東京都現代美術館為終站。此巡迴展是繼孟璐1989年為藝術家在紐約國際當代藝術中心 (Center for International Contemporart Arts, New York）舉辦〈草間：回顧展〉宣告華麗回歸後，草間職業生涯國際享譽更上一層樓的一個重要契機。

草間彌生的南瓜是當代藝術界最為人熟悉的創作標誌之一，同時亦是這位藝術家精神世界的中心支柱。她對南瓜的依戀始於童年，日後亦以它為創作主題。二戰結束三年後，十九歲的草間彌生於1948年開始修讀京都市立工藝美術學校的四年課程。她曾寫道：「我在京都的時候已積極繪畫南瓜，後來南瓜更成為我的重要創作主題」（草間彌生，《無限網：草間彌生自傳》，譯：拉爾夫・麥卡錫，泰特出版社， 2011年，頁75）。藝術家曾經憶述兒時經歷的戰爭及戰後時期，年幼的她以南瓜為食，每日所吃別無他物，直至作嘔反胃。然而，她仍對其自然而生的球莖形狀深深著迷，認為它們帶來「寬厚謙遜」的感覺，流露出「實在的靈性和諧」（同上註，頁76）。藝術家當時已受幻覺影響，她發現南瓜活靈活現地跟她說話。花朵、植物與其他事物通常令她聯想到傷害與威脅，使她一生飽受困擾；南瓜卻恰恰相反，在她眼中看來親切仁慈，有如她的守護者。

草間彌生早期的南瓜以傳統日本畫媒材繪成，自從在1958年從松本移居紐約後，她便摒棄了這種創作形式。身處紐約短短十八個月後，藝術家於1959年以西方油彩創作革新的《無限網》，令紐約藝壇為之哄動。其後她於1961年創作軟雕塑《Accumulation》。她於1965年運用圓點及條狀布料，為其雕塑增添繽紛色彩。她的各種跨媒材創作展示純粹徹底的廣度、規模與目標，風行整個紐約。在動人的畫作、深陷的空間、迷幻的裝置、人體藝術以至參與式表演中，她的圓點與網紋無處不在，創造出獨一無二的美學，表現「迷戀」與「消融」的語言，細緻縝密，且排山倒海，氣勢浩大，讓她得以對抗幻覺之苦。她說：「我直接把自身問題和恐懼當作創作題材...... 我不斷將圖案重複再重複，直至我完全沉浸在整個過程中為止。我將之稱為『消融』」（引述自草間彌生，米尼翁・尼克遜，<無限政治>，載於弗朗西斯・莫里斯編，《草間彌生》，泰特出版社， 2012年，頁180）。

草間彌生於六十年代在紐約迅速成名，其後於1975年退居日本。縱然多年來幾乎悄無聲息，她住院期間仍創作不輟，悄悄累積了大量藝術作品。她就在當時重拾早期喜愛的南瓜題材，並融入標誌性的「無限網」以及自我消融的圓點美學。藝術家在八十年代以平面油畫、素描及版畫探索南瓜圖案的色彩變化。歷年來，她繪畫南瓜外皮的技藝愈見精煉嫻熟，透過一絲不苟而又生動自然的創作方式，圓點更加流暢飽滿，收放自如。即使看來空置或「無點」的部分，實是佈滿微小的斑點，締造錯綜複雜、繁複嚴謹的構圖，如同幻視藝術，力量強烈，律動澎湃，縱橫交錯。

草間彌生在1990年創作《南瓜》，並經東京手畫廊出售，而這間畫廊和富士電視台美術館就是1980年代最早開始出售草間彌生作品的藝廊。這幅作品繪於1990年，與1989年草間彌生在紐約的首場回顧展幾乎同時發生。這場在紐約國際當代藝術中心舉辦的回顧展獲得公眾的熱切關注，標示著草間彌生再次成為美國與歐洲市場中炙手可熱的寵兒。同年，她成為了首位登上《美國藝術雜誌》（Art in America）的日本藝術家。與此同時，她的作品在日本亦獲得重新審視──在《南瓜》（1990年）面世後的短短一年，東京富士電視台美術館和原美術館就舉辦了草間彌生的重大展覽「鏡屋（南瓜）」，而這個展覽隨後於1993年的第45屆威尼斯雙年展中再度舉辦，草間彌生成為了第一位在威尼斯雙年展上舉辦個展的女性藝術家。

南瓜象徵草間彌生在精神和藝術上的重生，代表她從精神疾病的困擾中得到紓解，而這個過程與她在創作中不斷提升的複雜和靈巧程度相輔相成。如孟璐所說，草間的藝術創作「不僅要向瘋狂投降，還要將之征服。創傷必先要全然轉化，方可在人前呈現美感與意義」（孟璐撰，<天地之間：草間彌生的藝術>，載於《永恆的愛：草間彌生1958-1968年》展覽圖錄，洛杉磯藝術博物館，1998年，頁81）。