Marie Selby Botanical Gardens will present Yayoi Kusama: A Letter to Georgia O’Keeffe as the eighth iteration of its annual Jean & Alfred Goldstein Exhibition, which examines the work of major artists through the lens of their connection to nature.

The exhibition, which will be on view from Feb. 11-June 30, 2024, at Selby Gardens’ downtown Sarasota campus, will explore the unexpected yet profoundly impactful mentoring relationship that developed between artists Yayoi Kusama and Georgia O’Keeffe. The theme of the upcoming Goldstein Exhibition is the latest announcement of programming planned for Selby Gardens’ 50th anniversary season.

“Yayoi Kusama has become one of the world’s most influential contemporary artists and cultural figures,” says Jennifer Rominiecki, president and CEO of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens. “The exhibition will emphasize the meaningful connection between Kusama and fellow artist Georgia O’Keeffe based on their personal correspondence at a critical point in Kusama’s artistic development. This show also will explore the ways in which the work of both artists is rooted in nature, befitting an art and horticultural experience set in a botanical garden.”

In the mid-1950s, Yayoi Kusama was a young artist living in Japan facing an uncertain future. Seeking advice from a more established female artist, Kusama wrote to Georgia O’Keeffe, whose work she greatly admired but whom she had never met. To Kusama’s surprise, O’Keeffe responded, establishing a correspondence that gave the young Japanese artist the courage to move to America and pursue her career in New York City, then the center of the art world. Kusama’s decision, with O’Keeffe’s encouragement, changed the course of modern art history.