Bidspirit auction | Niki de Saint Phalle ”The

Niki de Saint Phalle ”The Witches Tea Party” Serigraph - Hand-signed lower left and numbered lower right.  Limited Edition: 43/115 Date: 1970   Image: 22” x 29 1/2”  Frame: 26” x 33”    Condition: Minor toning to the paper; otherwise, the print is in good condition. Colors are bright and vibrant. Minor marks to the frame, located primarily in the corners.   Artist Bio: Niki de Saint Phalle (1930–2002) was essentially self-taught and joined the Nouveaux Realistes in 1961 as the group's only woman, meeting Jean Tinguely — partner, collaborator and later husband — the year before. She is known first for the Tirs, or shooting paintings, plaster reliefs concealing bags of paint that were shot with a rifle so the work bled; and then for the Nanas, the exuberant, monumentally proportioned and brightly patterned female figures she began in the mid-1960s as celebratory archetypes of the feminine. The trajectory from rage to celebration is the standard reading of her career. This image comes from ”Nana Power, ” a portfolio of seventeen color serigraphs on Arches published in 1970 by Editions Esselier and printed by Michel Caza in an edition of 115 — the Nanas translated into print at the height of the series.