It is a bright and sunny day in Somerset, and out on the neatly mown lawn at Hauser & Wirth, Niki de Saint Phalle’s voluptuous Nanas (“girls”) are positively sparkling. There are three of them (a nod to Botticelli’s three graces): one silver, one black, one white, all made from polyester jazzed up with colourful mosaic and shimmering mirrors. She has captured them mid-twirl, arms tossed in the air like they just don’t care, legs kicked out at jaunty angles. They are joyful and radiant, monumental and robust, dancers and warriors.
Saint Phalle, a French American artist, began creating her abstract sculptures of women in the mid-60s, a decade after she first met the Swiss sculptor Jean Tinguely in Paris. He was married and so was she but five years later, both divorced, they got together; by the time they were married in 1971 both were seeing other people. It was a complicated, sometimes competitive relationship – romantically and artistically – that saw them collaborate and support each other creatively until Tinguely’s death in 1991. Saint Phalle looked after his legacy until her own death in 2002. Now, on the centenary of his birth, a new exhibition is presenting their work side by side – at least once we get off the grass and into the gallery.
