Who is Niki?

On Guide: n2
Sculpture: Arbres Serpent
Location: Spoehrer Plaza


Catherine Marie-Agnes de Saint Phalle was born in 1930 to an aristocratic family in France and raised in New York City. She was a somewhat rebellious child, who preferred to be called Niki. In her early twenties she suffered a nervous breakdown and turned to visual art as a means of survival. Niki became the only female member of Europes most important post-World War II art movement, the New Realists. She collaborated with, and later married, the Swiss avant-garde artist Jean Tinguely.

Niki was a prolific, self-taught artist. Her work included illustrations and shooting paintings on which she fired a rifle at bags full of paint attached to wood or canvas. Niki used tales and myths as a springboard to create fantastic creatures of her imagination. Working freely and spontaneously, she made joyous works to celebrate the diversity of life.

Nikis art is well-known throughout Europe, South America, and Asia, where she traveled for inspiration. This exhibition provides just a brief introduction to her vast creativity. The playful, larger-than-life sculptures presented here are mostly her mosaics and later creationsthe art she made after moving to San Diego in the 1990s.