« When a woman really wants to be at the top of the international art scene, she gets there. I am living proof of that! »
- Niki de Saint-Phalle
Niki de Saint-Phalle (1930-2002) was a Franco-American artist who drew her inspiration from her own life and from the ever-inspiring sixties culture. The result is an engaged and feminist body of work that is part of the wave of New Realists that she joined in the early 1960s. Inspired by artists as diverse as Jackson Pollock or Antoni Gaudi, her brightly colored and flamboyant aesthetic is reflected in her performance paintings, sculptures and films. The artist is best known for her Nanas, female sculptures of all shapes and forms, which are used extensively in her monumental sculpture park, The Tarot Garden in Italy.