Niki de Saint Phalle

Niki de Saint Phalle was a French-American sculptor, painter, and filmmaker celebrated for her vibrant, monumental works that challenged gender norms and celebrated feminine power. She is best known for her iconic Nanas series—large, colorful, exuberant female figures—and the monumental Tarot Garden in Tuscany, a sprawling sculpture park populated with mosaic-covered figures inspired by tarot card imagery. A self-taught artist associated with the Nouveau Réalisme movement, she also created provocative Shooting Paintings in the early 1960s, in which she fired rifles at plaster reliefs containing hidden paint bags, transforming destruction into artistic creation.