Just weeks after Yayoi Kusama’s death, one of her major pumpkin paintings is set to make its auction debut at Christie’s Hong Kong.
Painted in 2011, A-Pumpkin (YHP) will be offered in the house’s 20th/21st Century Evening Sale on 29 September, with an estimate of HK$48 million to HK$68 million (US$7.2-9.7 million). Measuring 130.2 x 162 cm, the canvas features one of Kusama’s most recognisable motifs: a yellow pumpkin covered in black polka dots, set against an Infinity Net ground.
Long a cornerstone of the Asian art market, Kusama has seen her large-scale pumpkin works and Infinity Net paintings achieve some of her highest prices at auction. Christie’s upcoming sale could now offer the first significant test of market sentiment in the wake of the contemporary art icon’s passing.
Yayoi Kusama (1929-2026) | A-Pumpkin (YHP), acrylic on canvas
Painted in 2011
130.2 x 162 cm
Estimate: HK$48,000,000 - 68,000,000
Kusama ranked among the most bankable names in contemporary art long before her death, commanding sustained demand across major markets worldwide. Hong Kong emerged as one of her strongest auction markets, where her works had been a fixture of both day and evening sales.
As recently as this March, seven pumpkin works of different colours, sizes, and media made a combined HK$125 million (US$16 million) during Hong Kong Art Week. Among them, a smaller yellow-and-black canvas from 1993 realised HK$39.5 million at Christie's.
Pumpkin (1993) | Sold: HK$39,540,000, Christie's Hong Kong, March 2026
Kusama passed away on 14 August
Louis Vuitton and Yayoi Kusama pop-up in Paris
Kusama’s auction market peaked in 2023, when her works generated a combined US$190.5 million worldwide. The year coincided with a surge in her public visibility: M+ staged Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now in Hong Kong – the largest retrospective of her work in Asia outside Japan – while Louis Vuitton's global campaign brought her signature dots and pumpkins into major retail hubs.
In Hong Kong that year, Christie’s achieved HK$78.1 million for A FLOWER (2014), setting an auction record for the artist in Asia, while Sotheby's sold Pumpkin (L) (2014) for HK$62.6 million, an auction record for a Kusama sculpture. Her overall record remains Untitled (Nets) (1959), which realised US$10.5 million at Phillips New York in 2022.
Kusama's top three prices at auction:
- Untitled (Nets) (1959), 130.8 x 116.5 cm | Sold: US$10,496,000, Phillips New York, 2022
- A FLOWER (2014), 162.2 x 162.2 cm | Sold: HK$78,125,000 (US$10.1 million), Christie's Hong Kong, 2023
- Pumpkin (L) (2014), 241 x 235 x 235 cm | Sold: HK$62,638,000 (US$8 million), Sotheby's Hong Kong, 2023
Untitled (Nets) (1959), 130.8 x 116.5 cm | Sold: US$10,496,000, Phillips New York, 2022 (Auction record for the artist)
A FLOWER (2014), 162.2 x 162.2 cm | Sold: HK$78,125,000, Christie's Hong Kong, 2023 (Auction record for the artist in Asia)
Pumpkin (L) (2014), 241 x 235 x 235 cm | Sold: HK$62,638,000, Sotheby's Hong Kong, 2023 (Auction record for a sculpture by the artist)
From early childhood, Kusama experienced visual hallucinations and obsessive neuroses, which she confronted directly through art.
The pumpkin entered her life early. As a child visiting a seed-harvesting nursery with her grandfather, she reached out to touch one lying among the yellow vines – and later recalled that it began speaking to her. During the war years, she ate pumpkin almost every day, to the point that the sight of it turned her stomach; yet she remained drawn to its “generous unpretentiousness.”
In 1958, she moved to New York, where she quickly made a name for herself with the Infinity Nets – monumental canvases of dense, interlocking loops with no beginning or end. After returning to Japan in the early 1970s and withdrawing into a period of intense depression, she found solace in the pumpkin: a humble, familiar form she could repeat across paintings, sculptures and installations.
A-Pumpkin (YHP) (2011), 130.2 x 162 cm (the present lot)
Executed in 2011, A-Pumpkin (YHP) belongs to Kusama's mature body of pumpkin paintings. Working in only yellow and black, she creates depth and shadow through subtle shifts in scale, placing larger dots along the pumpkin’s ridges and smaller ones in its creases. The form is set against a field of tasselled yellow nets on a black ground, a stylised variation on her iconic Infinity Nets.
A comparable canvas from the same year, measuring almost exactly the same size, fetched HK$55.2 million at Sotheby's Hong Kong in 2023. The auction record for a pumpkin painting belongs to Pumpkin (LPASG), which sold for HK$62.5 million at Christie's Hong Kong in 2021. Whether A-Pumpkin (YHP) can surpass its HK$48 million low estimate will be revealed later this month.
Pumpkin (LPASG) (2013), 130.3 x 130.3 cm | Sold: HK$62,540,000, Christie's Hong Kong, 2021
A-Pumpkin (BAGN8) (2011), 162 x 130 cm | Sold: HK$55,169,500, Sotheby's Hong Kong, 2023
Other Announced Lots:
Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) | Ancient Scientist, acrylic, oilstick, Xerox and paper collage on canvas
Executed in 1984
169 x 156 cm
Estimate: HK$56,000,000 - 76,000,000
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) | L’Assiette bleue, oil on canvas
Painted in 1879-1880
28 x 22.7 cm
Estimate: HK$25,000,000 - 35,000,000
Zao Wou-ki (Zhao Wuji, 1920-2013) | Sans titre (Untitled), oil on canvas
Painted in 1957
95 x 100 cm
Estimate: HK$22,000,000 - 35,000,000
Liu Ye (b. 1964) | Blue Sea, oil on canvas
Painted in 1998
170 x 200 cm
Estimate: HK$16,000,000 - 26,000,000
Christine Aj Tjoe (b. 1973) | The Highest Player 01, oil bar on canvas
Painted in 2016
170 x 200 cm
Estimate: HK$7,000,000 - 10,000,000
Auction Details:
Auction House: Christie's Hong Kong
Sale: 20th/21st Century Evening Sale
Date: 29 September 2026
Preview Exhibitions:
- Taipei | 12-13 Sep | Dopeness Art Lab No. 170, Section 2, Keelung Rd, Da’an District
- Hong Kong | 22-29 Sep | Christie’s, 6/F, The Henderson, 2 Murray Road, Central