Known primarily for her monumental Nanas, Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) left behind a protean body of work made up of performance paintings, feminist sculptures and psychoanalytic films. Self-taught, she placed her life and her personal ideas at the heart of her art, delivering a committed and feminist work.
It was during a dark episode in her life that Niki de Saint Phalle discovered painting. After a career in modeling, she suffered from depression at the age of 22. Art therapy was to prove salutary for the young woman and allow her to dispel her illness. It is not surprising then that the artist in becoming finds very quickly echoes near the art brut, initiated by Jean Dubuffet or the art outsider. Self-taught, she begins to paint in the years 1952, marking the first steps of an artist "touch to touch".
Sculptures, architectures and performances will multiply. Saint Phalle deploys a broad artistic spectrum and alternates mediums. Around her, many personalities cultivate her appetite for art in everyday life. She will claim to be a member of the New Realists movement and will be surrounded by Gérard Deschamp, Christo, Yves Klein and Miro. Artist friends, but also a husband. Niki de Saint Phalle will marry the painter and sculptor Jean Tinguely, with whom she will realize in particular the fountain of Stravinsky commissioned by the State, located at two steps of the Pompidou museum.
Niki de Saint Phalle's shooting performances in the 1960s made her world famous. Similarly, her monumental sculptures did not fail to attract attention ten years later with her "Golem" or "Monster Park" in West Jerusalem, and as the artist always sees bigger, she goes so far as to tackle the realization of a Park of sculptures in Tuscany, the "Garden of Tarots" inaugurated in 1998 and inspired directly by the park of Gaudi.
But who says Niki de Saint-Phalle says Nanas. Resolutely feminine artist but feminist, she creates a series of small women all in curves and in color, her Nanas. They are ambassadors of the modern woman, liberated from patriarchy, who take power by dancing and heckling. The artist approaches the female body with a feminist tone that is like a performance because it comes primarily from the point of view of the artist.
