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 February 11 through June 30, 2024, at Selby Gardens’ Downtown Sarasota campus, will explore the unexpected yet profoundly impactful mentoring relationship that developed between iconic 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. In the mid-1950s, Yayoi Kusama was a young artist living in Japan, where her future was very uncertain. 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, thus establishing a correspondence that gave the young Japanese artist the courage to move to America and pursue her career in New York City, which was then the center of the art world. Kusama’s decision, with O’Keeffe’s encouragement, forever changed the course of modern art history.  Selby Gardens’ Trustee Keith D. Monda is serving as the key lender to the exhibition. Additional loans have been secured from Richard and Ellen Sandor and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.