Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) was one of the most renowned artists from the mid-twentieth century. Throughout her prolific career, Saint Phalle created a complex body of work in various media which was deeply embedded with socio-political issues. With themes ranging from joyful to profound to intellectual, the paradoxal nature of her work has yet to be fully explored. She was one of the first women to receive international acclaim and recognition during her lifetime, as well as successfully create a public persona. Similar to Warhol, Saint Phalle was able to use the media to skillfully guide the reception of her work.
“I decided at a very early age to be a heroine. The main thing was that it was difficult, great, exciting!” (1)
Catherine, Marie-Agnès Fal de Saint Phalle, known as Niki de Saint Phalle, was born in 1930. The scion of a Franco-American family which could trace its descent back to the Crusades (2), she was brought up according to the codes of New York upper class society. First a model, then wife and mother, her story might have rested there. But that was without reckoning on her great sensitivity, a lively and personal view of history and the world, combined with a certain taste for rebellion and a fierce desire to “show. To show everything. My heart, my emotions (3).”
At the beginning of the fifties, Saint Phalle looked for a means of expression and painted her first works. Soon inspired by travel, frequent visits to museums and many meetings with artists, she chose to devote herself exclusively to art: “Painting calmed the chaos that was agitating my soul. It was a way of taming those dragons which have always appeared in my work (4).” She was self-taught, and thus kept her originality.
She was also able to incorporate her dual culture in her explorations. This translated into a series of large-scale works which involved a new kind of texture, reminiscent of the “Matterists” Jean Fautrier and Jean Dubuffet, as well as of Jackson Pollock’s “drippings” on a black and white background. A multitude of objects (weapons or cutting tools) are fixed to them on wide backdrops in heterogeneous assemblages which hark back to the Combine paintings of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg or the Nouveaux Réalistes [New Realists]
1 - Niki de Saint Phalle, Traces. Une autobiographie [An Autobiography], Remembering 1930-49, Lausanne, Acatos, 1999, p.16.
2 - Cited in Francblin, Niki de Saint Phalle. La révolte à l’oeuvre [A revolt in the making], Paris, Hazan, 2013, p.16.
3 - Lettre à ma mère [Letter to my mother], in exh. Cat. Bonn, Glasgow and Paris, 1992-1993, p.184-185.
4 - Niki de Saint Phalle, Harry and me. The family years, 1930-1960, Zurich, Bentelli, 2006, p.52.
Curator.- Camille Morineau.
Where.- Grand Palais, Paris, France.
When.- from 17 September 2014 to 2 February 2015.
The exhibition was organized in collaboration with the Réunion des musées nationaux - Grand Palais and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, with the kind participation of the Niki Charitable Art Foundation. The exhibition benefits from loans from the Sprengel Museum in Hanover, Germany and the Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain (MAMAC) in Nice, France - both recipients of generous donations from the artist.
