Pt. Leo Estate has unveiled a new pumpkin sculpture created by Japan’s most successful living artist, Yayoi Kusama at their sculpture park in Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. The iconic work by the nonagenarian sculptor – the first major-scale pumpkin sculpture to be seen in Australia – joins over 50 mainly large-scale sculptures from around the world on the Estate, as part of Australia’s largest private sculpture collection. 

The Kusama acquisition marks a milestone moment for the Estate as it continues to add to its collection of the world’s most coveted works of contemporary art, enhancing the sculpture park as a standalone art destination.

“We are thrilled to announce that Australia’s foremost Sculpture Park at Pt. Leo Estate has acquired a red and black Pumpkin. At three metres wide, the monumental work is much larger than Kusama’s iconic Naoshima sculpture and enjoys a spectacular Victorian coastal vista as backdrop,” says Pt. Leo Sculpture Park consultant curator, Geoffrey Edwards. 

The Naoshima sculpture, another larger-than-life work by Japan’s ‘Princess of the Polka Dot’, has an interesting history. The famous yellow and black pumpkin sculpture was washed out to sea in a typhoon off the coast of Japan’s Naoshima art island in 2021, and later retrieved, remade and returned to the end of its iconic pier. 

Kusama’s world-famous pumpkins are an ode to her childhood experience living on a small farm. The massed flower heads resembled the dots that became an obsession for the artist, who had drawn pumpkins from a young age. Decades later, the dots continue to be an important and recurrent motif in her multidisciplinary practice.

“I am very pleased to showcase my work in such a wonderful place. The magical fusion of nature and my work is something special that can only be seen in each location,” says Kusama of the Pumpkin at Pt. Leo Estate.

Created in bronze, mosaic and stainless steel, with apertures often cut out of their surfaces to create dot-pattern plays with light and shadow, the new red and black Pumpkin – conceived by the trailblazing Japanese artist in 2019 – is the latest to join works by KAWS, Jaume Plensa, Inge King, Bronwyn Oliver, Reko Rennie, Julian Opie, Deborah Halpern, Henry Moore, Antony Gormley, Clement Meadmore, Jeppe Hein and Andrew Rogers on the sprawling grounds of the Estate. 

“A polka dot has the form of the sun… a symbol of the energy of the whole world and our living life, and also the form of the moon, which is calm. Round, soft, colourful, senseless and unknowing, polka dots become movement… polka dots are a way to infinity,” explains Kusuma.

Kusama’s works have been exhibited at major museums and galleries around the world including The Museum of Modern Art (NYC), Guggenheim (Bilbao), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SF), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles), TATE Modern (London), David Zwirner (NYC), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Tokyo), Yayoi Kusama Museum (Tokyo), M+M Museum (Hong Kong), and most recently, The Art Gallery of NSW’s Sydney Modern (Sydney) and many more.

Image: Yayoi Kusama’s Red and Black Pumpkin at Pt. Leo Estate | Photo Credit: Chris McConville