Yayoi Kusama’s Pioneering Infinity Net Makes Its Auction Debut
AI-assisted voice playback. Starts only when you choose Play.
In 1960, just two years after Yayoi Kusama arrived in New York from Japan, she created a work that would anchor her arrival within the American avant-garde: No. 3P.B., a painting that merges her emerging signature motifs of dots and loops into an expansive, hypnotic net. The following year, the Whitney Museum of American Art selected this very work for its annual exhibition of contemporary sculpture and painting, positioning Kusama alongside Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler and Georgia O'Keeffe, each representing the leading edge of American modernism at that transformative moment.
A Historic First
For sixty-five years, No. 3P.B. has remained with its original collector, a guardian of this formative moment in postwar art history. Now, the work makes its auction debut, offering the collecting world access to a canvas that crystallises Kusama's earliest artistic vocabulary before the obsessive refinement that would define her six decades of creative practice. The painting exemplifies the moment when the artist synthesised her pioneering dot technique with the looping patterns that would become central to her visionary Infinity Nets series, works that speak to the infinite and the transcendent through meticulous, meditative repetition.
A Practice Unfolds
Kusama's presence in the 1961 Whitney exhibition placed her within a constellation of artistic equals, a recognition of her singular vision at a time when she was developing the conceptual foundations that would sustain her throughout her career. The Infinity Nets, of which No. 3P.B. stands as one of the earliest examples, became her vehicle for exploring themes of boundlessness, obsession and the dissolution of the self within endlessly repeating patterns. Each subsequent work in this series built upon the foundations laid in this painting, yet No. 3P.B. retains its own particular power as a work of emergence, of an artist finding her voice in a new landscape.
Viewing and Sale
The painting will be exhibited at Sotheby's Hong Kong Maison from 13 to 15 October before travelling to New York for The Now & Contemporary Evening Auction on 16 November, presented in partnership with Céline. This rare opportunity to encounter an early masterwork by one of the twentieth century's most influential artists represents a significant moment for collectors and institutions alike.
No. 3P.B. stands as both a historical document and a profound artistic achievement, a window into the moment when Kusama began her relentless interrogation of infinity, repetition and the transcendent potential of pattern. Its emergence at auction after nearly seven decades offers collectors the rare privilege of acquiring a work that shaped not only the artist's own trajectory, but the course of contemporary art itself.
Key Facts
- Artist: Yayoi Kusama
- Title: No. 3P.B.
- Year Created: 1960
- Series: Infinity Nets
- Sale: The Now & Contemporary Evening Auction, presented in partnership with Céline, Sotheby's New York
- Sale Date: 16 November 2026
The Simply Luxury View
This is a watershed moment for serious collectors of postwar abstraction. No. 3P.B. represents Kusama at the threshold of her mature practice, captured within an institutional context of the highest significance. The work's provenance, its presence in a landmark museum exhibition, and its status as an early exemplar of the Infinity Nets series combine to position it as a seminal acquisition for those seeking to understand the foundations of contemporary visionary art.
For collectors already engaged with Kusama's practice, this work offers essential historical context; for those encountering her oeuvre anew, it provides an entry point of profound clarity, demonstrating the singular coherence of vision that emerged fully formed in these earliest examples and never wavered across a career of extraordinary dedication and output.
Official brand website: sothebys.com
Imagery is used for editorial purposes. All rights remain with the respective owners, photographers and licensors.
Imagery courtesy of Sotheby's (@sothebys).