THE STABLES

Niki de Saint Phalle (1930–2002), started her artistic career in the 1950’s. In 1961, she began to work alongside Swiss artist Jean Tinguely, whom she married a decade later. In 1965, Saint Phalle developed the voluptuous female form of the Nana, French slang for “woman,” which led to the commission of the vast sculpture. Saint Phalle is also celebrated for her work on AIDS awareness; after an assistant contracted the disease and died of it, Saint Phalle illustrated, Aids, You Can’t Catch it Holding Hands. 

The artist paired bold, jubilant, and cartoonish feminine forms with dark and disturbing material in her multifaceted artistic career. Throughout, she continually disrupted long-held conventions in art, and her iconoclastic approach to her identity and society at large made her an early and important voice to both the Feminist movement and the development of early Conceptual Art. 

Unlike many of her contemporaries who prioritised the idea behind the work of art rather than the aesthetic demonstration of the idea, Saint Phalle's pieces were highly expressive, visually bold, and often playful - a style that celebrated aesthetics instead of interrogating its structures and conventions. 

She realised some of the most ambitious, immersive sculptural environments of the 20th century, and also made intensely personal, inward-looking work that reflected on her inner life and relationships. 

In 2001 she donated over 170 works to the MAMAC in Nice.