From Saint Phalle

Niki de Saint Phalle (1930–2002) occupies a central place in the history of art in the second half of the 20th century, not only as a major figure in the New Realism movement led by Pierre Restany, but also as the creator of a total plastic universe in which sculpture becomes architecture, symbol, and initiatory experience.

First recognized in 1961 for her “Tirs” (Shootings), radical performances in which the pictorial surface exploded under the impact of bullets, she transformed the act of destruction into a creative process, paving the way for a body of work in which matter is permeated by the psyche, myth, and personal reconstruction. From 1964 onwards, her “Nanas” imposed an immediately recognizable iconography: monumental female bodies, saturated colors, expansive volumes, a celebration of a sovereign and archaic femininity that broke with centuries of constrained representation.

This reflection on the symbolic power of the body found its fulfillment in the monumental Giardino dei Tarocchi, undertaken in the late 1970s in Tuscany, a vast park populated by twenty-two sculptures inspired by the major arcana of the tarot — The Empress, The Magician, The High Priestess, The Wheel of Fortune, Death, and The Sun — designed as habitable structures covered with mosaics, mirrors, and bright ceramics. More than a sculptural ensemble, this garden is a symbolic autobiography: The Empress, a maternal and sovereign figure in whom the artist lived, embodies creation and regeneration; The Devil and The Tower evoke destructive forces and transfigured traumas; The World affirms rediscovered unity. Nurtured by the visionary spirit of Antoni Gaudí and created in dialogue with Jean Tinguely, the symbolic balances, internal dynamics, and chromatic dramaturgy that gave rise to the monumental sculptures were developed.

Niki de Saint Phalle's work is firmly established on the international scene: it is held in the permanent collections of the Centre Pompidou, the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.