The French artist Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) with her "shooting paintings" suddenly became known: images, on which she had fortified Squibs under a layer of plaster. After a shot with the gun, the paint spilled freely on the image surface. The abstract stains painting of the post-war period has been using with these images, but everyone was whether artists or not, create from a gunshot such works. Niki de Saint Phalle became a member of the artist group "New Realism", which tried to integrate objects from everyday reality into art. The group included Daniel Spoerri and Jean Tinguely, Niki de Saint Phalle's husband.

Her "Nanas", figures made of polyester and plaster, senses-happy, pop colour female figures that exude physical warmth and naive kindness are famous. "Harbinger of a new, matriarchal era" has Niki de Saint Phalle she called. "I will make the largest sculpture of my generation. Greater, higher and stronger than men." Her Nanas populate many places and museums around the world. Many works created together with Jean Tinguely, so the huge Nana 'Hon' for the Museum in Stockholm, which was accessible from the inside and in the arms and legs space for a milk bar, offered a gallery and a movie theatre.

A highlight in the work of Niki de Saint Phalle's Tarot Garden of since 1979. Niki de Saint Phalle formulated in Tarot symbols of complex life situations and social realities: "If life is a card game, then we have been born without knowing the rules of the game. And yet we have to play. ... I am convinced that these cards contain an important message ... The Tarot I owe a better understanding of the spiritual world and the problems in life, also the insight that every difficulty must be resolved so that you can take new hurdles in attack and finally to achieve the internal unity and the gardens of Paradise. "