Born on March 22, 1929 (Showa 4), in Matsumoto, Nagano, as the eldest daughter of a wealthy family running a seedling business. From around age 10 she was tormented by hallucinations and auditory hallucinations and held herself together by sketching what she saw. The motifs of 'polka dots' and 'nets' come from these hallucinatory experiences of that time. In 1948 she studied Japanese painting at the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts (today the Kyoto City University of Arts) but despaired of the conservative Japanese art world. After a 1957 solo show in Seattle, in 1958 she went alone to New York. In 1959 at the Brata Gallery in Manhattan she presented a 'Infinity Net' series of large works nearly five meters wide, drawing extravagant praise from American avant-garde artists such as Donald Judd, Frank Stella, and Joseph Cornell, and was called the 'Queen of the Avant-Garde' in the 1960s. She mass-produced cross-genre innovative works — happenings (nude performances), soft sculpture (penis-shaped sewn objects), 'Infinity Mirror Rooms' expressing infinity with mirrors and bulbs. In 1966 she exhibited 'Narcissus Garden' without permission at the Venice Biennale, stirring controversy. In 1973 she returned to Japan suffering mental illness, set up a studio while attending a psychiatric hospital in Shinjuku, Tokyo, and continues her creative activity to this day. The Yayoi Kusama Museum opened in Shinjuku in 2017, and in March 2023, in a collaboration with Louis Vuitton, stores around the world were dyed in polka dots. As a living woman artist she holds the highest-level work prices and international influence in the world.

A fighter who, while battling lifelong mental illness (obsessive-compulsive neurosis, suicidal ideation), keeps saving herself through creation. She combines a single-minded pursuit of 'polka dots,' 'nets,' 'infinity,' 'death,' and 'love' with a clear-sighted self-recognition that, even after achieving worldwide success, openly calls herself a 'mentally ill person.' A rare energy that engages in everything from creation to publication and self-production, and a depth of feeling captured in her words, 'If there had been no art, I would have died long ago.'

Japan's greatest star in 21st-century contemporary art. Collaborations with Louis Vuitton and Comme des Garçons; major solo exhibitions at museums around the world (Tate Modern, Whitney Museum, Hirshhorn Museum, Guggenheim, Mori Art Museum, and more); the worldwide popularity of the Infinity Mirror Rooms; outdoor sculptures of 'Pumpkins' (Naoshima, Matsumoto, Niigata, etc.) becoming global tourist attractions — from the latter half of the 20th century into the 21st, she has done more than anyone else to make Japanese art known to the world. The Yayoi Kusama Museum that opened in 2017 (Shinjuku, Tokyo) and the permanent display at the Matsumoto City Museum of Art in Nagano are her main facilities. Many world honors include the Order of Culture (2009), the French Order of Arts and Letters Commandeur (2016), and the Velázquez Prize for the Arts (2021).