How To Draw A Saints Fleur De Lis

Dragonfly Collection/Garance Primat

History is a continuum, especially in the art world, and nowhere is that clearer than in the work of Niki de Saint Phalle. Known for her vivacious, sculptural celebrations of womanhood, she had largely been dismissed by art historians—until recently, when an overdue moment of reckoning arrived.

Earlier this year an exhibition inspired by her philosophy of radical joy inaugurated Salon 94's new East 89th Street space, and another at MoMA PS1 focused on her architectural projects and monumental sculptures (the New York Times called the latter "one of the most surprising shows of the season"). Opening this month and running until January 23 at the Menil Collection, in Houston, is "Niki de Saint Phalle in the 1960s," an exhibit that centers on the pivotal decade in Saint Phalle's artistic practice.

The world may have finally caught up with Niki de Saint Phalle.

Wolfgang Kuhn/United Archives via Getty Images

What has made Saint Phalle suddenly ubiquitous? According to Michelle White, a curator of the Menil show, it's that the world finally caught up with her. "We feel really strongly that the themes she was addressing in the 1960s are precisely tied to questions of #MeToo," White says. "Of course, things have evolved, but the basis of questioning these assumptions is still present."

Born in France in 1930, Saint Phalle moved to the United States when she was three years old and spent her childhood in New York City. At 22 she returned to France to recover from a breakdown and immersed herself in Paris's art scene. She was the only female member of the French Nouveau Réaliste group founded by critic Pierre Restany, which included artists Yves Klein, Christo, and Jean Tinguely, whom she collaborated with frequently and later married.

In the 1960s she was galvanized by the political and social activism of the decade. In 1961 she picked up a .22 caliber rifle and created a multitextured composition by shooting paint-filled plastic bags that she had affixed to a white plaster surface. This was the birth of her Tirs (called in English Shooting Paintings), a feminist gesture of reclamation. Although many archival images of these works depict Saint Phalle as a lone shooter, the Tirs were a participatory effort in which she would implicate viewers.

niki de saint phalle shooting one of her tirs, 1962

Saint Phalle working on one of her Tirs, 1962.

Getty Images

For Saint Phalle, shooting a canvas was an assault on Western painting traditions, and creating vibrantly colored representations of female figures at the height of Minimalism was exemplary of her revolutionary gender politics. In the wake of the cathartic and explosively colored Tirs, Saint Phalle began making the Nanas (French slang corresponding to "chicks") to stand as symbols of liberated women. She believed that the playfulness of her work was subversive to the dominant constrictions of the patriarchy.

The Houston exhibit, conceived by White and co-curator Jill Dawsey, explores Saint Phalle's avant-garde status and how her resistance establishes her as a foremother of such contemporary artists as Tschabalala Self, Katie Stout, and Rachel Feinstein. Through more than 40 works, including paintings, sculptures, and prints, the show counters previous attempts to deintellectualize Saint Phalle's work and brings the past into the very challenging present.

"Niki de Saint Phalle in the 1960s" will later travel from Houston to the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego to inaugurate the institution's new building, designed by Annabelle Selldorf—a poignant homecoming for Saint Phalle, who died in La Jolla in 2002.

This story appears in the September 2021 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW

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