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Niki de Saint Phalle
"Once I painted in a brillant red, the vine leaves covering the sex of the statues in the school hall."
+ Coup de coeur
"Coup de coeur" by Niki de Saint Phalle
Le Rossignol - Décembre 2015
Elle disait : « J'ai toujours été folle des oiseaux. Comme je tardais à apprendre à lire, Papa me dit un jour : Je te ferai un cadeau quand tu sauras lire. Je répondis : un oiseau ! J'appris à lire si vite que mon père et mes professeurs en furent ébahis. »
Le rossignol est né d'un projet exaltant : la Fontaine Igor Stravinsky. Une commande publique initiée par Pierre Boulez, qui souhaitait doter le toit de l'Ircam d'un grand bassin en hommage à Igor Stravinsky, dont il fut l'ami et l'élève. Accompagné de Jacques Chirac et Claude Pompidou, il contacta aussitôt Jean Tinguely et lui suggéra une collaboration avec Joan Miro. La réponse du sculpteur suisse claqua : « Je la fais avec Niki ou je ne la fais pas ». Effervescence dans l'atelier de Niki de Saint-Phalle, où Jean Tinguely fit son shopping parmi les maquettes. « On s'est bien amusé, dit Niki de Saint-Phalle après l'inauguration de la fontaine en 1983. Stravinsky est un thème idéal, joyeux, rythmé, extravagant ». Les motifs furent puisés dans l'oeuvre d'Igor Stravinsky : Ragtime, L'Oiseau de Feu, Le Sacre du Printemps, Le Rossignol de l'empereur de Chine, Le Renard, Circus Polka, The Rake's Progress. Seize sculptures mobiles, ébouriffées de jets d'eau, un projet démocratique : huit machines de Tinguely et huit sculptures de Niki. « J'ai fait en sorte que mes couleurs soient encore plus vives pour que sa ferraille paraisse plus foncée. C'est un jeu...., dit-elle, sans vainqueur ni perdant ».
L'opéra d'Igor Stravinsky « Le rossignol » d'après le conte d'Andersen « Le Rossignol de l'empereur de Chine » lui inspira une sculpture aérienne, dans la lignée des Skinnies. « Vous pouvez apercevoir le ciel ou la nature à travers eux. J'invite le spectateur à regarder à travers mes sculptures. L'air est entré dans ma vie ».
Elle disait : « Si on vivait dans un monde joyeux, je rechercherais la tristesse, la laideur. De nos jours, la joie est un acte subversif ».
+ Stamp
Stamp by Niki de Saint Phalle
The publication of a postal stamp is often a homage paid by a nation to a place, an event, a remarkable cause or a character which count. The painters and other artists do not escape from this rule. Some are however "forgotten" of postal art. Here, gathered below (French or foreign), emitted stamps (206) or simple studies of stamp (224) in homage to the artists represented on our website. The first French stamp was emitted in 1849, England preceded us by ten years. There is often a share of voyage in this small form of shape paper. The stamp circulates, sails, flies away, it makes dream, then dream a little. M.C.
When the stamp is really emitted, the artist name is preceded of an asterisk (*). It is certain that we do not know each stamp emitted for such or such artist; do not hesitate with us to make known them!
Discover all the stamps
+ Autograph
Document by the atist in reproduction
Document in reproduction / This document is not for sale
+ Listen
Listen
+ Watch
Watch
Notes of biography
Catherine de Saint Phalle, said Niki de Saint Phalle, was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1930. From 1933 till 1951, she lived in New York. She was at first an actress and got no artistic education. Niki de Saint Phalle began however to paint in 1952 in self-taught.
In 1960, she is member of the New Realists-group and became the partner of Jean Tinguely. He encouraged the flowering of her art. Niki de Saint Phalle laid paintings-reliefs, the "riffle shootings" interactive parodies of the Action Painting; wanting to destroy the sacred aura of the art, the artist invited the spectator to fire on painting-filled-balloons which flew and splashed canvases violently. That was a huge scandal and made known… her name. She already participated to her group-collective-exhibitions, when her first personal exhibition was organized in 1961. Niki de Saint Phalle gathered relics, little angels and crucifix, she covered with golden painting.
In the middle of the 60s, she began the series of the "Nanas", the colorful and baroques caricatures of the feminine condition which she ceaselessly modeled. She created all different sizes of her “Nanas”, until gigantic models sometimes. Her "Nanas" were always adorned with lively colours, often decorated with mosaics and mirrors-fragments. The artist approached all the subjects which were dear to her, the woman, the maternity, the love, the dream, the monsters.
Niki de Saint Phalle created according to the same principle (statue in polyuréthane) other series (Musicians of jazz, Sportsmen, Totems). She made togehter with Jean Tinguely sculptures for state commissions. "Nanas" and "Méta-mécaniques" are always in confrontation in "Fontaine Stravinsky" created in 1982 at the bottom of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. In 2000, Niki de Saint Phalle donated more than 170 of her works to the Museum of modern art in Nice.
She died in 2002 to San Diego (California, United States).
Artists on display
The art and the artists display: proclamations, galleries, museums, personal or collective exhibitions. On walls or in shop windows, wise or rebels, posters warn, argue, show. Some were specially conceived by an artist for such or such event, other, colder, have only the letter.
Some were created in lithographic technic, most are simple offset reproductions. They are many those who like collecting these rectangles of paper, monochrome or in games of colours, in matt paper or brilliant, with many words or almost dumb.
We are happy also to be able to greet, by this pages, mythical galleries as those of Denise René, Louis Carré, Claude Bernard, Berheim Jeune, Maeght, Pierre Loeb and others.
Complete work(s)
Complete work(s)
*« Oeuvre gravé 1968-1980 », D. Chenivesse et B. Kühn, Ed. Ulmer Museum, Ulm, 1980
*« Paintings, Shootings, Assemblages, Reliefs, 1949-2000 », Vol. I en 2 Vol., J. Parente, P. Restany et Z. Musaca, Ed. Acatos, Lausanne, Suisse, 2001 ("Peintures, Tirs, Assemblages, Reliefs")
*« Posters, les affiches », C. Von der Osten, Ed. Prestel, 2005
Bibliographic track and more
To read about the artist :
- « Niki de Saint Phalle », MNAM, Paris, 1980
- « Niki de Saint Phalle », Pontus Hulten, Verlag Gerd Hatje, Stuttgart, 1992
- « N. de Saint Phalle, rétrospective », MAM de la Ville de Paris, 1993
- « Niki de Saint Phalle », Shizue Yoko Masuda, Niki Museum, Nasu, 1998
- « Niki de Saint Phalle », Ed. Acatos, Lausanne, 2001
- « Niki de Saint Phalle - La donation », MAM de Nice, Ed. Georges Naef, 2002
- « Niki de Saint Phalle et le jardin des tarots », collectif, Ed. Hazan, 2010
- « N. de Saint Phalle, la révolte de l'oeuvre », C. Francblin, Ed. Hazan, 2013
- « N. de St Phalle : Il faut faire saigner la peinture ! », E. Reynaud, Ed. Ecriture, 2014
- « Niki de Saint Phalle », collectif, Grand Palais, Ed. RMN, 2014
To read from the artist :
- « Mon secret », Ed. de La Différence, Paris, 1994
- « Traces : une autobiographie 1930-1949 », Ed. de La Différence, 2014
Website :
www.mamac-nice.orgMore :
+ Stamp
Stamp by Niki de Saint Phalle
The publication of a postal stamp is often a homage paid by a nation to a place, an event, a remarkable cause or a character which count. The painters and other artists do not escape from this rule. Some are however "forgotten" of postal art. Here, gathered below (French or foreign), emitted stamps (206) or simple studies of stamp (224) in homage to the artists represented on our website. The first French stamp was emitted in 1849, England preceded us by ten years. There is often a share of voyage in this small form of shape paper. The stamp circulates, sails, flies away, it makes dream, then dream a little. M.C.
When the stamp is really emitted, the artist name is preceded of an asterisk (*). It is certain that we do not know each stamp emitted for such or such artist; do not hesitate with us to make known them!
Discover all the stamps
+ Autograph
Document by the atist in reproduction
Document in reproduction / This document is not for sale
+ Listen
Listen
+ Watch
Watch
Art movements
All art movements
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Beyond works currently in stock, it seemed to me useful to combine business with pleasure by letting you discover others works by artists in my gallery. These artworks, now sold or removed from our website, have been in our stock in the past.
These pages will undoubtedly make it possible for some of you to associate an image with its title or the other way round, for others it will be a good time to discover more on such and such artist. For the sake of confidentiality – the pieces being no longer available – we won't display neither their numbering or their price. For whatever reason, make sure to visit this amazing art database with to date 6441 online works just for your pleasure! Michelle Champetier
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