Niki de Saint Phalle
Covered by droit de suite
Image rights
The artworks in this database are protected by copyright and may not be reproduced without the permission of the rights holders. The artworks are reproduced in this database with a license from Bildupphovsrätt.
For condition report contact specialist
"La Tempérance"
Signed Niki and numbered 2/10 and stamped Haligon. Executed in 1985. Acrylic, polyester and iron base. Height 75, width 50 cm. Total edition of 10 + 4 AP.
Literature
Pontus Hultén, "Niki de Saint Phalle", 1999, compare p. 256.
More information
Niki de Saint Phalle became a member of the artistic group the Nouveaux Réalistes, with links to Dadaism and pop art, through her relationship with Jean Tinguely in the early 1960s.
NSP’s was inspired to create her Nana sculptures by her pregnant friend Clarice Rivers in 1964. Initially, the sculptures were made of yarn, papier mâché and steel wire; later, NSP made them out of polyester. They are curvy, colourful female shapes that are happy, liberated and godlike women, foreboding a new matriarchal era. NSP also created several Nanas painted in black and white as a reaction to the Civil rights movement in the United States, and as an expression of the artist’s notion that all women are goddesses, regardless of colour.
The ultimate Nana was HON (“SHE”), a monumental, recumbent figure that NSP created together with Jean Tinguely and P O Ultvedt, and which was exhibited at Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 1966. HON was a symbol of the independent Nana and was a cathedral that held an entire exhibition hall. NSP was responsible for the exterior and the other two for the interior. Through the 20 m long womb of this giant woman, the crowd would walk into a fantastic world with a cinema, a bar, a slide and various moving sculptures.
Today, the sculpture group Paradiset (“Paradise”), with the monumental Nanas, resides outside of Moderna Museet. The work was created for the World Exhibition in Montreal and subsequently was donated to the museum.