You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'niki de saint phalle' category.
Buddha, originally uploaded by purplecosmid.
Mosaic Artist - Who was Niki de Saint Phalle? « Mosaic Art Source
Die Kaiserin on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
KursfahrtNSP (37) on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Niki de Saint Phalle, née Catherine Marie-Agnes Fal de Saint Phalle (October 29, 1930 - May 21, 2002) was a French sculptor, painter, and film maker
The Early Years
De Saint Phalle was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine in Paris to Jeanne Jacqueline (née Harper) and Andre Marie-Fal de Saint Phalle, a banker. After being wiped out financially during the Great Depression, the family moved from France to the United States in 1933. During her teens, she was a fashion model; at the age of sixteen she made the cover of Life magazine (September 26, 1949), and later the November 1952 cover of the French Vogue magazine. At eighteen, de Saint Phalle eloped with author Harry Mathews, whom she had known since the age of twelve, and moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. While her husband studied music at Harvard University, de Saint Phalle began to paint, experimenting with different media and styles. Their first child, Laura, was born in 1951.
De Saint Phalle rejected the staid, conservative values of her family, which dictated domestic positions for wives and particular rules of conduct. However, after marrying young and giving birth to two children, she found herself living the same bourgeois lifestyle that she had attempted to reject; the internal conflict led to her to suffer a nervous breakdown. As a form of therapy, she was encouraged to start painting.
MAG—Niki-de-Saint-Phalle on Flickr - Photo Sharing From the about to open “Master Printers” exhibition at the Municipal Art Gallery of the City of Los Angeles.
IMG_6700 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
While in Paris, de Saint Phalle was introduced to the American painter Hugh Weiss who became both her friend and mentor, encouraging her to continue painting in her self-taught style. She subsequently moved to Deya, Majorca, Spain where her son Philip was born in May of 1955. While in Spain, de Saint Phalle read the works of Proust and visited Madrid and Barcelona where she discovered and was deeply affected by the work of Antonio Gaudí. Gaudí’s influence opened many previously unimagined possibilities for de Saint Phalle regarding the use of diverse material and objet-trouvés as structural elements in sculpture and architecture. De Saint Phalle was particularly struck by Gaudí’s “Park Güell” which convinced her to one day create her own garden work that would combine both art and nature. Saint Phalle continued to paint, particularly after her family relocated to Paris in the mid-1950s. Her first art exhibition was held in 1956 in Switzerland where she displayed naïve style oil paintings. She then moved onto collage work that often featured objects of violence, such as guns and knives.
Do you like my new outfit? on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
by Niki de Saint Phalle
Eye on Europe: Prints, Books & Multiples/1960 to Now
MoMA October 15, 2006–January 1, 2007
The Nanas
After the “Shooting paintings” came a period when she explored the various roles of woman. She made life size dolls of women, such as brides and mothers giving birth. They were usually dressed in white. They were primarily made of polyester with a wire framework. They were generally created from papier mâché.
Inspired by the pregnancy of her friend Clarice Rivers, the wife of American artist Larry Rivers, she began to use her artwork to consider archetypal female figures in relation to her thinking on the position of women in society. Her artistic expression of the proverbial everywoman were named ‘Nanas’.
“Black Nana of the Three Graces” on Flickr - Photo Sharing
The first of these freely posed forms, made of papier-mâché, yarn, and cloth were exhibited at the Alexander Iolas Gallery in Paris in September of 1965. For this show, Iolas published her first artist book that includes her handwritten words in combination with her drawings of ‘Nanas’. Encouraged by Iolas, she started a highly productive output of graphic work that accompanied exhibitions that included posters, books and writings.
In 1966, she collaborated with fellow artist Jean Tinguely and Per Olof Ultlvedt on a large scale sculpture installation, “hon-en katedral”. for Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden. The outer form of “hon” is a giant, reclining ‘Nana’, whose internal environment is entered from between her legs. The piece elicited immense public reaction in magazines and newspapers throughout the world. The interactive quality of the “hon” combined with a continued fascination with fantastic types of architecture insensifies her resolve to see her own architectural dreams realized. During the construction of the “hon-en katedral,” she met Swiss artist Rico Weber, who became an important assistant and collaborator for both de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely. During the 1960s, she also designed decors and costumes for two theatrical productions: a ballet by Roland Petit, and an adaptation of the Aristophanes play “Lysistrata.”
Niki & Jean on Flickr - Photo Sharing! The Tinguely Museum (Basel) with an exhibition of Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely called l’Art et l’amour
Her life with Jean Tinguely
In 1955 de Saint Phalle met Jean Tinguely and his wife, Eva Aeppli. She asked Tinguely to weld the armature for her first sculpture. In 1960, de Saint Phalle divorced her husband, writer Harry Mathews. That same year, Jean Tinguely and Eva Aeppli also divorced. De Saint Phalle and Tinguely subsequently moved into the Impasse Ronsin where they shared the same studio and lived surrounded by other artists, including Constantin Brancusi. It was in this period that Marcel Duchamp introduced the pair to the Spanish surrealist Salvador Dalí. De Saint Phalle later traveled to Spain with Tinguely in order to attend a celebration honoring Dalí; while there, the pair created a life-sized exploding bull with plaster, paper and fireworks for the arena at Figueras. In 1963, they bought an old country inn outside of Paris to serve as both their home and studio, l’Auberge du Cheval Blanc in Soisy-sur-Ecole, some 50 kilometers south of Paris. She married Jean Tinguely on 15 July 1971 acquiring Swiss citizenship.
The Tarot Garden
Influenced by Gaudí´s Parc Güell in Barcelona, and the garden in Bomarzo, de Saint Phalle decided that she wanted to make something similar; a monumental sculpture park created by a woman. In 1979, she acquired some land in Garavicchio, Tuscany, about 100 km north-west of Rome along the coast.
IMG_6664 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Tarot card #10 wheel of fortune on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
The garden, called Giardino dei Tarocchi in Italian, contains sculptures of the symbols found on Tarot cards. The garden took many years, and a considerable sum of money, to complete. It opened in 1998, after more than 20 years of work. She then went on at the royal palace and made a painting and gave it to the queen, evey year she did this and that is how she became famous.
Niki de Saint Phalle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thank God on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Expo Niki de Saint Phalle, early works & graphics, Amersfoort, 2005
Mosaic Art Source - Mosaic Master - Niki de Saint Phalle Mosaic Image Archive
Mosaic Art Source - The Tarot Garden Mosaic Image Archive
IMGP0279, originally uploaded by kiwifirst303.
Queen Califia’s Magic Circle Mosaic Sculpture Garden - Niki de Saint Phalle - Escondido, California
This unusual sculpture garden was created by the late, internationally famous Niki de Saint Phalle. It is one of the four large-scale sculptural environments designed and built by the artist and her studio collaborators, and the only one located in the United States. The garden is a joint effort by Saint Phalle, who financed the sculpture project, and the city of Escondido, which acquired the land and is responsible for landscaping, maintenance and operation.
queencalifia16 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Saint Phalle chose as her subject the mythical Queen Califia, an Amazon warrior for whom the state of California is named. This amazing creature, first popularized in a 16th century romance novel, is believed to have ruled a terrestrial island paradise of gold and riches “on the right hand of the Indies.”
queencalifiacircle1 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
She conceived the garden as a gigantic circle (120 feet in diameter) with an 11-foot statue of Queen Califia in the center. Clad in gold armor astride a monumental, 13-foot eagle, she carries another regal bird on her uplifted hand. Surrounding her are her courtiers, eight totems representing animals and elements of the land over which she reigns.
IMGP0284 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
The first sight is of the imposing statue of Queen Califia, executed in mosaic, mostly gold (installed by Lech Juretko’s Art Mosaic of El Cajon).
She is a voluptuous figure that suggests power and vision as she looks West. The eagle, on which she rides, stands on four powerful legs that form a mini temple decorated with symbols of Queen Califia’s reign. This space is accessible to children and small adults.
IMGP0273 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Entrance to the magical circle is through a maze of black, white and mirror tiles on the walls and floor. Inside, the scale and breadth of Saint Phalle’s vision is impressive. The floor of the circle is tiled in white ceramic circles of varying diameters.
Queen Califa’s Magical Circle, Kit Carson Park on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Saint Phalle intended for the garden to be user-friendly. “You can feel the sculptures,” she said in one of her last interviews. “They feel nice and you won’t harm them. You can be a part of them; it’s like a marriage between the sculptures and a child, or adult. Maybe it brings out the child in adults, too.”
Queen Califa’s Magical Circle, Kit Carson Park on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
The central courtyard, with shade from trees in planters around the walls, reflects that feeling. Three benches of travertine marble and river rocks that front the planters will seat approximately 60 visitors at a time. The entire project is a visual delight. Everything about the sculpture garden is cursive.
queencalifiacircle10 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
The walls undulate in an irregular circle, and rise and fall in height from 4 to 9 feet. The interior walls are faced with Mexican pebble stones and tens of thousands of hand-cut glass, ceramic and stone mosaic tile. The mosaic designs are primarily bands that vary from abstract figures of plants and animals to representations of plaids, diagonals and medallions. The walls also bear ceramic plaques incised with American Indian rock art symbols along with handprints of the workers and their families.
queencalifiacircle1 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
The fiberglass totems, varying in height from 11 to 21 feet, stand at floor level and can be examined close-up. They are surreal but easily recognizable shapes mounted on columns bearing other animals and birds.
Picture 175 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
The Yelling Man Totem differs from the others. Instead of being mounted atop a column, the column is the totem, with a giant open mouth at floor level. A large iguana crawls up the back of the Cathead Totem, while the Bullhead Totem sports bears and eagles. An eagle upside down and another iguana decorate the Birdhead Totem.
Queen Califa’s Magical Circle, Kit Carson Park on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
The Step Totem, one of two with mirror mosaics, has a small seat for viewers directly in front of two seated figures.
Picture 046 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
A multibodied snake embraces the Kingfisher Totem. The Snake Totem has two if its namesakes entwined around a column decorated with mirror tiles.
Picture 082 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Queen Califia’s Magic Circle Mosaic Sculpture Garden - Niki de Saint Phalle - Escondido, California
Mosaic Art Source - Mosaic Master - Niki de Saint Phalle Mosaic Image Archive
Mosaic Art Source - Who was Niki de Sant Phalle?
DSCN0695, originally uploaded by blu49.
Check out the Niki de Saint Phalle site, absolutely fantastic!
danza blu, originally uploaded by matteo_nina.
arlecchino, originally uploaded by matteo_nina.
abbracciami, originally uploaded by matteo_nina.
2005_05120465, originally uploaded by aeminphilly.
Mosaic, originally uploaded by lizmathile.
Good oral hygiene is so important, originally uploaded by CircusDogs.
Niki de Saint Phalle, La Cabeza Mosaic, 2000. Photographed at Atlanta Botanical Garden 2006.
Picture 048, originally uploaded by helemax.
Picture 080, originally uploaded by helemax.
“Black Nana of the Three Graces”, originally uploaded by ~Jing.
fountain sculpture, Niki in the Garden, Atlanta Botanical Garden
miles, originally uploaded by romanlily.
The Niki in the Garden exhibit at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens is definitely worth the trouble for Atlanta guests and residents. Was really impressed with it during our visit yesterday. This is detail from her sculpture called Miles Davis.
Bird Statue, originally uploaded by h3lic3.
Niki De Saint Phalle
Installation in Escondido, California Sculpture Garden