Yayoi Kusama was just shy of 30 when she left her hometown of Matsumoto in Nagano Prefecture and headed to America to meet her hero, the painter Georgia O'Keeffe.
It was improbable, even quixotic, but Kusama soon developed an artistic style that endeared her to the New York City of the 1960s. Her obsessive paintings of repeated polka-dot and net patterns were well received in local galleries, and her frequent public "happenings" -- many of which involved hippie assistants running round in the nude -- made her a darling of the local media. There was even a stretch of time when Kusama is said to have garnered more press coverage than Pop Art's poster boy himself, Andy Warhol.
But the public image of a cool and carefree female Asian artist contrasted sharply with reality.