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Monday
Sep062010

Femme Fertile

This sculpture stands a little off to the side in the gardens of the Tinguely museum. It’s by Jean Tinguely’s wife, Niki de St Phalle, who was a highly successful artist in her own right. She was French, but also lived in America and Spain before marrying Tinguely. Her most famous work, hon-en katedral, was a six-ton, 27 metre long female figure which visitors to a 1966 exhibition at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm entered through the groin. She also contributed to the Stravinsky fountain in Paris, and spent two decades towards the end of her life building a sculpture garden in Tuscany. Many of her works remain on public display around the world, in the United States, Germany, France, Israel and Switzerland. Although they never had children together, Jean and Niki were indeed a fertile couple.