Niki de Saint Phalle

(French, 1930-2002)

Winged Owl Chair
1999

Footnotes

Provenance
Yoko Shizue Masuda Collection, Japan
Private Collection, Japan (by descent from the above)
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Exhibited
Tokyo, The National Art Center, Niki de Saint Phalle, 2015, p. 174, no. 151, illustrated in colour
Seoul, Hangaram Art Museum, Niki de Saint Phalle: works from the Masuda collection, 2018


Niki de Saint Phalle, born Catherine-Marie-Agnès Fal de Saint Phalle to French-American parents in the wealthy Parisian suburb of Neuilly-Sur-Seine, would come to be known as one of the most widely recognised artists in the world. Popular with collectors the world over, Saint Phalle is known for her joyous and fantastical larger-than-life sculptures of women, animals and mythical creatures in an unabashedly vivid rainbow palette. The aesthetic incarnation of pure extasy, Saint Phalle joined the Nouveau Réalisme movement in the early 1960s – the only female member, her unique vision aligned itself with the disparate aesthetic and founding principals of the group. The present work, Winged Owl Chair, 1999, which held pride of place in the artist's home in La Jolla, California, is an exquisite example of the artist's fantastical vison.

Raised in a wealthy conservative Catholic family, Saint Phalle would later go onto describe her upbringing as hellish. Having suffered terrible abuse at the hands of both her parents, the trauma of her upbringing went on to influence much of her adult life and artistic output. Desperate to escape the abuse and the rigid rules of bourgeois society, Saint Phalle married her childhood friend Harry Matthews in 1949, giving birth to their first child two years later. Living a transitory and Bohemian lifestyle, Saint Phalle soon began to realise that the domestic reality of family life had only replicated the same bourgeois confines and conventions she had originally hoped to escape. This realisation resulted in a severe psychological breakdown and after a failed suicide attempt Saint Phalle turned to painting as a form of therapy. In 1954 the young family moved to Majorca and Saint Phalle travelled extensively throughout Spain where she was first introduced to Antoni Gaudí's work. Struck by the Parc Güell in Barcelona, Gaudí's work would open Saint Phalle to unimagined artistic possibilities and would go onto strongly influence her work and specifically her sculpture gardens.

Fascinated by the spiritual, Saint Phalle rebelled against her Catholic upbringing searching for a higher existence outside of the confines of the Christian faith. This search reveals itself in the numerous works inspired by Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Indian deities, which after her move to California in 1994, would lead to an interest in Native American spirituality and Mesoamerican cosmology. Created towards the end of the artist's life while living in La Jolla, California, the Winged Arm Chair incorporates many of these influences. Crafted from teak and coloured glass, including Murano glass, the present work speaks to both the artist's past and present. The coloured glass and specifically the Murano glass recalls the artist's relationship to Italy and the Tarot Garden more specifically, while Saint Phalle's use of wood in conjunction with the totemic nature and the symbolism of the Owl recalls both Native American and Mesoamerican spiritual traditions. Saint Phalle would continue to explore these historical Californian and central American traditions in her work, which would culminate in the creation of Queen Califa's Magical Circle , her final sculpture garden in Kit Carson Park, Escondia. Sadly Saint Phalle would never see this final iteration of her vision come to life, dying the year before it opened in 2003.

Niki de Saint Phalle's work has the unique ability of penetrating all aspects of 20th century visual culture. Her unique style is universally recognised, with her public sculptures found across three continents and her works collected in museums across the globe including the Louisiana Museum of Art, Humlebaek, Modern Museet, Stockholm, the Tate Gallery, London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the National Museum of Art, Osaka among many others, with the present work included in a landmark exhibition at the National Art Centre, Tokyo in 2015.