You know what they say: sometimes a stuffed fabric phallus-covered baby carriage spraypainted silver a couple of years later is just a stuffed fabric phallus-covered baby carriage spraypainted silver a couple of years later.

Yayoi Kusama rapidly became a major force in the New York art world of the early 1960's with her all-over net-like paintings and her all-over, anemone-like altered furniture sculptures. Then she up and moved back to Japan and fell off the art world's radar screen until the 1990's.

True story, a friend found a Kusama chair sculpture, covered with fabric phallus shapes, in an East Village thrift shop for next to nothing. He sat there with it while a friend brought him the money. Then he sold it to launch his gallery; now he's a big macher in the Chelsea art world.

If you're prowling around for a baby carriage like this, give up now. According to Kusama, she only made one, for a show in 1965, which was bought a year or so later and then donated to the Allen Museum [no relation, alas] at Oberlin College. Though there is a baby stroller in a private collection in Cleveland...

Baby Carriage, 1964, by Yayoi Kusama [oberlin.edu]