Niki de Saint Phalle

Niki de Saint Phalle became a member of the artistic group the Nouveaux Réalistes, with links to Dadaism and pop art, through her relationship with Jean Tinguely in the early 1960s.

NSP’s was inspired to create her Nana sculptures by her pregnant friend Clarice Rivers in 1964. Initially, the sculptures were made of yarn, papier mâché and steel wire; later, NSP made them out of polyester. They are curvy, colourful female shapes that are happy, liberated and godlike women, foreboding a new matriarchal era. NSP also created several Nanas painted in black and white as a reaction to the Civil rights movement in the United States, and as an expression of the artist’s notion that all women are goddesses, regardless of colour.

The ultimate Nana was HON (“SHE”), a monumental, recumbent figure that NSP created together with Jean Tinguely and P O Ultvedt, and which was exhibited at Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 1966. HON was a symbol of the independent Nana and was a cathedral that held an entire exhibition hall. NSP was responsible for the exterior and the other two for the interior. Through the 20 m long womb of this giant woman, the crowd would walk into a fantastic world with a cinema, a bar, a slide and various moving sculptures.

Today, the sculpture group Paradiset (“Paradise”), with the monumental Nanas, resides outside of Moderna Museet. The work was created for the World Exhibition in Montreal and subsequently was donated to the museum.