Catherine Marie-Agnes Fal de Saint Phalle, best known as Niki de Saint Phalle (Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, 29th of October of 1930 - San Diego, California, United States, 21st of May of 2002). She was a famous French sculptor, painter and filmmaker, and Jean Tinguely’s wife, who was also a sculptor and painter.
She went to the USA in 1933, where she worked as a model in her adolescence.
In 1962, she participated in the exhibition “The Art of the Assembly” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1964, she started to create a work series titled “Nanas”, female figures of voluptuous shapes and vivid colours. In the same series, in 1964, she made the biggest woman sculpture in art history, called “Hon”, which means “She” in Swedish. She built “The Tarot Garden” in 1979, which is a sculpture garden near Florence, Italy.
In 1982, with her husband Jean Tinguely, she made the “Stravinsky Fountain” (or “Fontaine des automates”) near the Pompidou Centre in Paris.
