Ellen Weinstein's gorgeous illustrations for new children's book Yayoi Kusama: From Here to Infinity

Written by Sarah Suzuki, a curator in the Department of Drawings and Prints at MoMA, with illustrations by Weinstein and reproductions of seven of Kusama's artworks, including several in MoMA’s collection and installation shots of her famed Infinity Mirrored Room and the Obliteration Room, this colourful book tells the story of an artist who is covering the world in dots, from here to infinity.

Growing up in Matsumoto, Kusama always knew she wanted to become an artist. In the fields of her family’s nurseries, she drew flowers and plants and stones, imagining the world around her as streams and clusters and arrays of dots. After studying traditional painting in Japan, Kusama moved to New York City, where she could live without the strict rules of her family and society. She devoted herself to her art and quickly became famous for her paintings patterned with dots, and for her big soft sculptures of chairs, sofas, and boats completely covered with stuffed tubes.

Now 88 years old and widely considered to be the most popular artist in the world, Kusama lives in Japan and still makes art every day. A retrospective exhibition, Infinity Mirrors, is currently on a tour of major museums in North America, including the Seattle Art Museum (June 30–September 10, 2017); The Broad in Los Angeles (October 2017–January 2018), the Art Gallery of Ontario (March–May 2018), the Cleveland Museum of Art (July–October 2018), and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta (November 2018–February 2019).

"Our earth is only one polka dot among a million stars in the cosmos," the artist has said. "Polka dots are a way to infinity."

Yayoi Kusama: From Here to Infinity is published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and will be available at MoMA stores and online at store.moma.org.