Niki de Saint Phalle Niki de Saint Phalle

Fontaine aux quatre Nanas
1974/1991

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Description

Niki de Saint Phalle

Niki de Saint Phalle Fontaine aux quatre Nanas 1974/1991 Fountain sculpture: polyester resin and lacquer, colored, with integrated water conduction system Approx. 80 x 236 x 236 cm. Signed "Niki de Saint Phalle" and numbered on the side of the basin. Copy 1/3 (+2 A.P.). - With slight signs of age. With enclosed photo certificate from the Archives de Niki de Saint Phalle, San Diego. The present work is registered in the Archives de Niki de Saint Phalle, San Diego. Provenance Acquired directly from the artist; Collection Linda and Guy Pieters, France. Exhibitions Atlanta/Georgia 2006 (Atlanta Botanical Garden), Niki in the garden, The extraordinary sculptures of Niki de Saint Phalle, exhibition cat., p.72 with color ill. (other copy) Nice 2002 (Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain), Niki de Saint Phalle, La Donation, cat.-exhibition, p.239 with color illustration (other copy) Santiago 1997 (Sala de Exposiciones Edificio CTC), Niki de Saint Phalle, cat.-exhibition, p.18 with color illustration (other copy) Luxembourg 1995 (city center), Niki de Saint Phalle, Un univers à découvrir, exposition en plein air Luxembourg-ville, Ausst.Kat., p.34 with ill. (other copy) Mexico City 1995 (Fundacion Olga y Rufino Tamayo), Niki de Saint Phalle, exhibition cat., o.p. with color ill. (other copy) Bonn 1992 (Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle), Glasgow 1993 (McLellan Galleries), Paris (Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris), Niki de Saint Phalle, Ausst.Kat., p.245 with color ill. (other copy) Santiago 1997 (Sala de Exposiciones Edificio CTC), Niki de Saint Phalle, exhibition cat.,p.18 with color ill. (other copy) The famous "Nanas" populate Niki de Saint Phalle's oeuvre since 1965. Inspired by the pregnancy of a friend, the artist created the voluptuous female figures with their emphatically feminine curves, first from wire frames, fabric and papier-mâché, later from painted polyester resin. In the Nanas, Saint Phalle combines various female role models into a single figure, as an allegory for the woman par excellence. They stand for pure joie de vivre, are colorful, wild and cheerful. They celebrate their femininity in an uninhibited and self-confident manner - and thus represent the antithesis of the conservative, well-behaved image of women that Niki de Saint-Phalle is modeled on by her family and against which she has rebelled since her earliest youth. "For you, everything had to be hidden. I wanted to show. I wanted to show everything. My heart, my feelings. Green. Red. Yellow. Blue. Violet. Hate, love, laughter, fear, tenderness," Saint Phalle writes in a fictional letter to her mother (quoted from: Niki de Saint Phalle, Ausst.Kat. Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle Bonn 1992, p.186). "Fontaine aux quatre Nana" is a fantastic fountain object in which four individually designed "Nanas" take a bath together in a relaxed lust for life. Jets of water spray from their hands, mouths and colorfully patterned breasts via fine nozzles. Saint Phalle repeatedly relates the "Nanas" to the sensually tangible element of water. In 1967 she made her first "Nana" fountain on the occasion of her retrospective at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. The artist also designed a fountain very similar to the "Fontaine aux quatre Nana" in her famous "Tarot Garden" in Tuscany, which she realized as her life's work from 1979.

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Niki de Saint Phalle

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