Niki de Saint Phalle

French-American sculptor, painter, and filmmaker Niki de Saint Phalle was a member of the Nouveau Realisme movement and infused her work with commentary on race, gender, politics, pandemics and climate change — issues that still resonate today. In 2000, she was awarded the Praemium Imperial Prize, considered the Nobel Prize of the art world.

One of the most enduring works associated with Saint Phalle is Le Cyclop in Milly-la-Forêt, France. A giant, one-eyed head covered in mirrors, Le Cyclop is a 75-foot-tall sculpture built from more than 300 tons of industrial debris and created over two decades by Saint Phalle's husband, Swiss artist Jean Tinguely, along with Saint Phalle and a group of artist friends. Two years before her death in 2002, Saint Phalle began work in Escondido, California on Queen Califia's Magical Circle, her only American sculpture garden. Its imagery was influenced by early California history and legend, Native American and Meso-American culture, and indigenous wildlife and plants. Although Saint Phalle died before the garden's completion, her granddaughter and assistants saw the project to fruition.