Saint-Phalle, Niki de

(1930- )

   painter and sculptor

   Recognized for her brightly colored and fanciful sculptures, as well as for her performance art, Marie-Agnès Fal de Saint-Phalle, or Niki de Saint-Phalle, as she is known, was born in Paris. She staged her first performance art in 1961 with "tableaux surprises," in which participants were invited to shoot mixed-media constructions at her, releasing bursts of color in expressionist patterns. In 1963, she was invited to join the group of Nouveaux Reâlistes artists (yves klein, Christo, and others), and, in 1964, she sculpted the first of her Nanas, large female figures—the largest being the Hon figure (1966) and, after 1969, her "maisons-sculptures" and the "sculptures-jeux" (Golem, for Rabinovitch Park in Jerusalem, 1972; Nana-piscine, in Saint-Tropez, 1973). Niki de Saint-Phalle created a fantasy garden in Tuscany (Giardino dei Tarrochi, 1980), then in 1983, in collaboration with her husband, Jean Tinguey, the Fontaine Stravinsky near the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Her works are often considered as feminist statements against what was once the male-dominated art movement.