Who is Niki?

Sculpture: Arbre serpents
On Guide: n2
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 Europe's 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" in 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.

Niki's 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 creations — the art she made after moving to San Diego in the 1990s.

Listen to the audio version.

 
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