Yayoi Kusama Pumpkin Print Prices: 277 Korean Auction Sales, Seventy of Them Souvenirs
From 2022 to 2026, 277 Yayoi Kusama lots sold at Korean auction. Seventy were resin pumpkins and printed towels, and her pumpkin screenprints have not risen since 2022.
The cheapest Yayoi Kusama sold at a Korean auction since 2022 went for $52. The most expensive went for $7,793,506. Both were called Pumpkin.
Kusama died in a Tokyo hospital on 14 August 2026, at 97. Her official site announced it on 27 August.
To most people she was the artist of polka dots, mirrored rooms and yellow pumpkins. She was born in Matsumoto, Nagano, in 1929, and from childhood turned the hallucinations she lived with into pictures. Ota Fine Arts records that she moved to the United States in 1957 and was working in New York the following year. That is where she painted the nets: canvases covered edge to edge in small looping marks.
She went back to Japan in 1973, and from 1977 lived by choice in a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo, working from there. She represented Japan at the Venice Biennale in 1993, and the Yayoi Kusama Museum opened in Tokyo in 2017. Her pumpkin on the island of Naoshima became one of the island's landmarks.
Her auction record comes from the New York years. Untitled (Nets), from 1959, sold at Phillips New York in May 2022 for $10.5 million.
The nets are where her work starts. According to Phillips' catalogue note for the painting, she painted the early ones for hours at a stretch, often without eating or sleeping, trying to make the hallucinations of her childhood visible. Five mural-sized white nets were her New York debut in October 1959, and fellow artists bought them: Donald Judd, Frank Stella, and Günther Uecker, who owned this one after a swap with her in 1960. The black ground behind the pumpkins in the prints further down this page is a net too.
The pumpkin is what the public knows, but the record book belongs to the early work. Of the 13 Kusama auction records HENI lists since 1993, one is a pumpkin. Korea is the other way round: the Korean record is a pumpkin painting, and no net painting from the 1950s or 1960s appears in the Korean records used here.
I pulled every Kusama that sold at a Korean auction from January 2022 to July 2026: 277 lots, about $36.3 million across the 276 whose price is recorded. Seventy of the 277 are not artworks. They are resin pumpkins, printed towels and fabric sold as souvenirs, and the dearest of them made $1,231. At the other end, 24 paintings on canvas account for 70 percent of the money.
The K-artmarket records I retrieved on 15 September show no Kusama sale after her death. The latest is a screenprint on 21 July. The first to be offered is a 1994 pumpkin painting at Seoul Auction on 22 September, estimated at $596,632 to $708,501. Everything below comes from before she died.
What the 277 lots are
| Type | Lots | Median | Range | Share of total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paintings on canvas or board | 24 | $596,632 | $186,448 to $7,793,506 | 70.2% |
| Mixed media objects and an installation | 4 | $151,022 | $82,037 to $3,281,476 | 10.1% |
| Drawings on paperboard | 4 | $37,290 | $31,323 to $44,747 | 0.4% |
| Prints | 165 | $32,815 | $3,580 to $108,140 | 18.5% |
| Bronze, ceramic and zinc alloy objects | 10 | $10,068 | $6,712 to $104,411 | 0.7% |
| Souvenirs | 70 | $261 | $52 to $1,231 | 0.1% |
One painting, a pumpkin sold at Seoul Auction in September 2024, is left out of the medians and the total because its price in the database is broken. More on that at the end.
The souvenirs are small resin pumpkins named after the red pumpkin sculpture on the island of Naoshima, towels and cloths printed with pumpkins, and a snow globe. Fifty-seven of the seventy sold through smaller houses such as Herald Art Day, Raiz Art and I-Auction. Sometimes the title says "art goods", and sometimes it does not: Raiz Art listed the same resin pumpkin simply as Naoshima Red Pumpkin.
The $3,281,476 object is an installation, Statue of Venus Obliterated by Infinity Nets: a statue of Venus 214.5cm tall, covered in her net pattern, set against a canvas. The other three mixed media lots are yellow pumpkin objects small enough to hold in one hand, sold for $82,037 to $152,887.
K Auction put a painted zinc alloy pumpkin titled Pumpkin (NGV) into its online sale six months running, November 2025 to April 2026. It sold every time, for $6,712 to $10,441.
A median across all of this would describe nothing. The first question with Kusama is what the object actually is.
In prints, the pumpkin sets the price
Eighty of the 165 prints are pumpkins. Their median is $59,663. The median for everything else, flowers, hats, fruit, butterflies and figures, is $23,865, two and a half times less.
Nineteen prints sold for 100 million won, about $74,600, or more. All nineteen are pumpkins.
Three editions, read off the margins
Editions are useful to anyone reading prices, because the same image keeps coming back. The K-artmarket records used here do not record the edition number, so I read it from the pencil note in the lower margin of each auction plate. Seoul Auction photographs the whole sheet and the number is usually visible. K Auction crops its plates to the image, so its numbers cannot be read.
None of the three pumpkin editions that sell most often in Korea has risen since 2022.Pumpkin (2), 1990, is an edition of 150. The two readable sheets are 104 and 141, so at least those are different impressions.
| Sale | House | Sheet | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 2022 | K Auction | Not visible | $108,140 |
| Jun 2022 | Seoul Auction | 104/150 | $89,495 |
| Aug 2022 | Seoul Auction | 141/150 | $70,850 |
| Mar 2023 | K Auction | Not visible | $65,630 |
| Aug 2023 | K Auction | Not visible | $72,342 |
| May 2024 | K Auction | Not visible | $69,358 |
| Oct 2025 | Seoul Auction | Not visible | $61,901 |
| Oct 2025 | K Auction | Not visible | $68,613 |
The top price came in March 2022. By August it was a third lower, and the five sales since have all fallen between $61,901 and $72,342.
Pumpkin MT, 1999, is an edition of 110 according to its margin. It sold for $61,901 in July 2022, peaked at $82,037 and $74,579 on consecutive days in December 2023 (once at Seoul Auction, once at K Auction), and made $65,630 in March 2026 on sheet 16.
Pumpkin (GT), a green pumpkin from 1996 in an edition of 120, went from $46,239 in March 2023 to $29,832 in November 2024 and again in March 2026, on sheet 71. Its red twin, Pumpkin (RT), went from $44,002 in July 2023 to $26,103 in October 2025.
The non-pumpkin prints fell further. Women and Eyes Flying in the Sky are a pair of 56x76cm prints that K Auction often offers together. There they made $10,441 to $11,187 in 2022 and $4,848 to $7,831 in 2024 and 2025. In September 2024 Women sold for $5,221 in K Auction's online sale and, fifteen days later, for $7,831 in its main sale. Online and live sales draw different bidders, and the gap was half again.
Nine small pumpkin paintings
Nine of the 24 paintings are pumpkins on canvases of about 22x15cm, the size Korean painters call 1 ho. I compared the plates one by one, and the eight that have a plate are all different paintings, so this is a series of prices for the same size of picture rather than one picture being resold.
| Sale | House | Painting | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 2022 | Seoul Auction | Yellow pumpkin on black | $462,390 |
| Jun 2022 | Seoul Auction | White pumpkin on red, with collage | $596,632 |
| Jul 2022 | Seoul Auction | Red pumpkin on black | $581,716 |
| Oct 2022 | Seoul Auction | White pumpkin on black | $454,932 |
| Aug 2023 | K Auction | White pumpkin on red | $484,764 |
| Feb 2024 | Seoul Auction | Pumpkin (AAY), red pumpkin on white | $447,474 |
| May 2024 | Seoul Auction | White pumpkin on black | $417,642 |
| Jan 2026 | Seoul Auction | Pumpkin (AAT), no plate in the record | $536,969 |
| Feb 2026 | K Auction | Yellow pumpkin on black | $536,969 |
The four in 2022 made $454,932 to $596,632. The three in 2023 and 2024 made $417,642 to $484,764. Both in 2026 made $536,969. So the small paintings dipped with the prints and then, unlike the prints, came most of the way back. Two sales in 2026 is not enough to call that a direction, and each picture is a different year and colour.
A painting of a hat on the same size of canvas made $335,606 in June 2025. It is one sale, but it came in below all nine pumpkins.
The net paintings
The Infinity Nets are priced by size and period, and the Korean results range from $186,448 for a small one in June 2026 to $1,864,475.
That top figure is also the worst result in the record. Infinity-Nets Green (TTZO), painted in 2005 and nearly two metres tall, was offered in March 2023 at a Hong Kong sale that Seoul Auction held in Seoul. Newsis listed the estimate at 3 billion to 5 billion won, $2,237,370 to $3,728,950. It sold for 2.5 billion won, $1,864,475, well under the low estimate.
Between 2025 and 2026, three net paintings sold for $1,417,001, $1,491,580 and $1,566,159. None was the same size as another.
The Korean record moved three times
| Sale | House | Work | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 2021 | Seoul Auction | Pumpkin, 1981 | $4,064,556 |
| Nov 2022 | Seoul Auction, Hong Kong sale held in Seoul | Green pumpkin, 2014 | $4,787,972 |
| Mar 2026 | Seoul Auction | Pumpkin (MBOK), 2015 | $7,793,506 |
On 31 March 2026 Seoul Auction sold Pumpkin (MBOK), a large yellow pumpkin painted in 2015, for 10.45 billion won, $7,793,506, against an estimate of $7,085,005 to $11,186,850. Newsis reported that it was the highest price for a Kusama sold in Korea. The same sale set the Korean auction record for any artist, with Yoshitomo Nara's Nothing about it at $11,186,850.
One gap needs saying. The green pumpkin that held the record in 2022 is not in the K-artmarket extract I worked from, although two smaller Kusamas from the same sale are. The 277 lots and the $36.3 million total do not include it.
Taken together, the top ten lots account for 61 percent of the Korean total, and 17 of the 24 paintings sold at Seoul Auction.
Results abroad this year
Korean figures here are hammer prices. Foreign figures include the buyer's premium, which makes them look higher than they are by comparison.
During Art Basel Hong Kong week in March 2026, The Value counted eight Kusama pumpkins across Sotheby's, Christie's and Bonhams.
| Sale | Work | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Sotheby's Hong Kong evening, 29 Mar | Pumpkin, 2015, urethane paint on fibreglass, 210x196x196cm | $6,338,241 |
| Christie's Hong Kong evening, 27 Mar | Pumpkin, 1993, acrylic on canvas | $5,042,536 |
| Bonhams Hong Kong, single-owner sale, 28 Mar | Red Pumpkin, 2000, acrylic on canvas | $2,835,502 |
| Sotheby's Hong Kong evening, 29 Mar | Pumpkin, 1998, acrylic on canvas | Withdrawn before the sale |
The two most expensive pumpkins in Hong Kong both hammered exactly on their low estimates. Sotheby's sculpture hammered at HK$40 million on an estimate of HK$40 million to HK$60 million, and Christie's painting at HK$32 million on HK$32 million to HK$40 million. The Sotheby's sculpture carried an irrevocable bid, a commitment made before the sale to buy at a set price. A third, the 1998 painting, came out of Sotheby's sale before it began. The bidding that pushes a lot past its estimate was not there at the top of her market either.
The Seoul result for Pumpkin (MBOK) two days later works out at about $9.34 million with Seoul Auction's premium and VAT. It is a larger and later canvas than Christie's 1993 pumpkin, so the two do not line up as a like for like comparison.
In London in June, Phillips sold INFINITY-NETS (MAE), from 2013, for $2,096,271, above its high estimate of $1,625,016.
The first large sale since her death is Sotheby's Hong Kong evening auction on 28 September, which includes Pumpkin (TWPOT) at an estimate of $6,121,440 to $8,672,040 and Infinity-Nets (LHLUJ) at $1,020,240 to $1,530,360. Sotheby's London is also offering the print Pumpkin 2000 (Yellow) online until 23 September, estimated at $33,854 to $47,396. The same title sold in Korea for $61,155 at K Auction in March 2024 and for $29,832 at Seoul Auction that October. I could not see the edition numbers or condition of either Korean sheet, so the reason for that gap is unknown.
Her galleries and retrospectives
David Zwirner represented her from 2013, alongside Ota Fine Arts and Victoria Miro. Her retrospectives toured from the Museo Reina Sofía to the Centre Pompidou, Tate Modern and the Whitney in 2011 and 2012; Infinity Mirrors opened at the Hirshhorn in Washington in 2017 and travelled to Seattle, Los Angeles, Toronto, Cleveland and Atlanta until 2019; the New York Botanical Garden showed KUSAMA: Cosmic Nature in 2021; M+ in Hong Kong held "Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now" from November 2022 to May 2023; the National Gallery of Victoria showed her from December 2024 to April 2025; and a European retrospective opened at the Fondation Beyeler in October 2025 before travelling to Cologne and Amsterdam. In Korea, "A Dream I Dreamed" ran at the Daegu Art Museum in 2013 and at the Hangaram Art Museum of the Seoul Arts Center in 2014.
What the record cannot tell you
The data starts in January 2022. The $4,064,556 record of 2021 is outside it.
It only records sales. A 1990 pumpkin painting offered by K Auction in December 2024 at $566,800 to $671,211, and a red net painting offered by Seoul Auction in December 2025 with a starting price of about $1.49 million, appear in pre-sale press coverage but not in the sale records. I could not confirm whether either failed to sell or was withdrawn. For scale, the Korea Art Appraisal Association counted 45 Kusamas offered across nine Korean houses in the first half of 2023, of which 26 sold, 57.8 percent.
Two prices are broken. The September 2024 pumpkin, a yellow painting previewed at around $2.09 million, and Infinity-Nets Green are both recorded at 2,147,483,647 won, the largest number the database field can hold. For Infinity-Nets Green I used the 2.5 billion won given in the Korea Art Appraisal Association's report for the first half of 2023. For the pumpkin I found no reported price, so it is excluded.
Three rows were removed as duplicates. The October 2025 net painting at $1,417,001, a Pumpkin (2) print from the same sale and a souvenir each appeared twice on the same day at the same price, with one row missing its plate. The pre-sale coverage of that October sale names one Kusama, so one net painting row went. The other two were removed the same way without that confirmation.
Estimates are missing from every Kusama record in K-artmarket. Every estimate in this article came from press coverage.
What to check before bidding
Check that it is an artwork. The same title covers a $7.8 million canvas and a $52 souvenir. If the medium line says resin, fabric or towel and there is no signature or edition number, it is a souvenir.
Check the subject and the edition. A pumpkin print costs about two and a half times a flower or hat print of the same size, and within the pumpkins, Pumpkin (2) has recently made $61,901 to $72,342 while Pumpkin (GT) has made $29,832.
Ask for a photograph of the whole sheet. The edition number and date are pencilled in the margin, and K Auction's plates crop the margin out.
Use recent sales of the same edition, not the 2022 peak. Measured against 2022, prices now look cheap, and that is not the same as a bargain.
Look at the kind of sale. The same print has sold half again as much in a live sale as in an online one, and foreign results include premium.
Ask for a condition report. Several of these prints use foil or lamé, and paper fades.
Budget for the premium. Seoul Auction's Korean sales add 18 percent plus VAT on that fee, so Pumpkin (MBOK) cost its buyer about $9.34 million. K Auction's live sales add 16.5 percent including VAT.
Auction data from K-artmarket, 19 January 2022 to 21 July 2026, retrieved 15 September 2026. Korean prices are hammer prices, buyer's premium excluded, converted at 1,340.86 won to the dollar (rate of 9 September 2026). Foreign prices include buyer's premium, converted at 0.12753 dollars to the Hong Kong dollar and 1.35418 dollars to the pound. Estimates and the 2021 and 2022 records from Newsis, Seoul Economic Daily, SBS, Edaily and Seoul Shinmun; the 2023 price of Infinity-Nets Green from the Korea Art Appraisal Association; Seoul Auction's September 2026 offering from Hankyung and Asia Economy; Hong Kong results from The Value, HENI, Sotheby's and Phillips; the auction record from HENI; biography from Ota Fine Arts, Tate and David Zwirner; childhood hallucinations and the Naoshima pumpkin from Financial News (Korea), 27 August 2026; exhibition dates from M+, the National Gallery of Victoria and Korean press; buyer's premium from Seoul Auction's auction guide and K Auction's bidding guide, retrieved 15 September 2026. Edition sizes are read from the plates; the edition of 150 for Pumpkin (2) is also given by MyArtBroker.