'Niki in the Garden' Sculpture Show Comes to St. Louis

The Missouri Botanical Garden is hosting "Niki in the Garden," an exhibition of 39 playful, larger-than-life mosaic sculptures in a rainbow of colors and materials, through October 31. You can read the press release or take an audio-visual tour of the show.

David Bonetti, visual arts critic for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, has written a glowing and insightful review. Kristen Hare tags along with five-year-old Cavi Wilson at the preview and chats with MOBOT's Lynn Kerkemeyer and NCAF trustee Bloum Cardenas. The Post-Dispatch surveys Niki's life and work and offers an audio slideshow narrated by Marcelo Zitelli, trustee of the Foundation.
 

Education and research are fundamental to the mission of the Niki Charitable Art Foundation. In the coming weeks, we will be rolling out new resources for researchers, students, and educators, beginning with this detailed roster of individual exhibitions by Niki de Saint Phalle (from 1956 to the present), a list of museum collections worldwide with works by Niki de Saint Phalle, and a selected bibliography.

Upcoming additions will include further informational resources about Niki's life and work, materials designed for use by students and educators, and a guide to offline resources in the NCAF Archive for researchers.
 

A stunning exhibition of photos of the Tarot Garden, the extraordinary sculpture garden created by Niki de Saint Phalle in Tuscany between 1978 and 2002, runs through 15 August at La Coupole in Paris. "Niki de Saint Phalle: Le Jardin des Tarots" features 37 large-format photographs by Giulio Pietromarchi and Laurent Condominas.
 

For a kid's-eye view of Niki de Saint Phalle, visit "Les boîtes à secrets de Niki" at the Musée en Herbe, the children's museum in the Jardin d'Acclimatation of the Bois de Boulogne. The exhibition, presented with the generous support of the Mayor's Office of the City of Paris, will be on display through 2 January 2009. Learn more.
 

Last year's "Niki in the Garden" sculpture exhibition at Chicago's Garfield Park Conservatory took top honors at the 2008 Illinois Governor's Conference on Tourism. The exhibition's marketing campaign was named the strongest by any organization in Illinois for 2007 and the year's best integrated marketing campaign by a large organization.

More than 145,000 people visited the Garfield Park Conservatory to see "Niki in the Garden," a 300 percent boost in attendance over the previous year. For details, see the official announcement and this letter from the Chicago Park District and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. Our sincere congratulations to the dedicated team that helped to make this exhibition possible.