Exhibition
Niki de Saint Phalle
From April 30 avril to October 5 2025For its summer 2025 exhibition, Caumont-Centre d’Art is showcasing the works of Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002). The Franco-American artist, who created a powerful, socially committed universe with her work, vibrant with energy and poetry, became a household name with her amazing “Nanas” series (the name is a slang word for women).
This exhibition highlights the influence that animals and imaginary creatures had on the artist throughout her life. Through this previously unexplored theme, the exhibition shows how her work, throughout her career, was peopled with a fascinating magical bestiary that mingled symbols, myths, autobiographical accounts and the legacy of Surrealism.
The exhibition retraces Niki de Saint Phalle’s whole career, offering an original interpretation through the prism of her portrayal of animals. The exhibition route is designed to be an initiatory fairy tale, inviting visitors to wander amongst the mischievous creatures before entering an imaginary world where all beings live in magical harmony. The works of this artist often have an autobiographical dimension, evoking an experience of life marked by a constant thirst for creation, which eventually led her to make large-scale sculptures. Her fantasy bestiary can particularly be seen in her monumental public projects (fountains, playgrounds) and her architectural projects, begun in the 1960s.
This event is supported by the Niki Charitable Art Foundation. 
With the patronage of
The team
Exhibition curator
The exhibition’s curator, Lucia Pesapane, is an art historian specializing in Niki de Saint Phalle, and has organized the artist’s retrospectives at the Grand Palais in 2014, at Les Abattoirs in Toulouse in 2022-23, and the exhibition at the Museo delle Culture in Milan in 2024. She has worked for fifteen years in French institutions, organizing, among others, the exhibitions Women House and Kiki Smith at the Monnaie de Paris and Pionnières, artistes des années 20 at the Musée du Luxembourg. Her research focuses on the work of women artists from the early 20th century to the present day.
NIKI CHARITABLE ART FOUNDATION
The Niki Charitable Art Foundation, created by Niki de Saint Phalle, became officially active on her death. It represents the artist’s personal collection. It preserves Niki de Saint Phalle’s works of art and archives, and holds the intellectual property rights to them. The Fondation serves as a link and point of contact for all Niki de Saint Phalle-related projects.
Production and creation
Emmanuelle Lussiez, Director of Exhibitions at Culturespaces;
Milly Passigli, Deputy Director of Exhibition Programming;
Madeleine Balansino, Head of Exhibitions at Caumont-Art Centre;
Livia Lérès and Domitille Sechet responsible for iconography at Culturespaces.