Jean Tinguely

Fontaine Jo Syffert, Abstract black colorful print

Jean Tinguely (1925 – 1991) was a Swiss painter and sculptor, married to Niki de Saint Phalle. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, in the Dada tradition; known officially as metamechanics. Tinguely's art satirized the mindless overproduction of material goods in advanced industrial society. Born in Fribourg, Tinguely grew up in Basel, but moved to France in 1952 with his first wife, Swiss artist Eva Aeppli, to pursue a career in art. He belonged to the Parisian avantgarde in the mid-twentieth century and was one of the artists who signed the New Realist's manifesto (Nouveau Realisme) in 1960. His best-known work, a self-destroying sculpture titled Homage to New York (1960), only partially self-destructed at the Museum of Modern Art NY, although his later work, Study for an End of the World No. 2 (1962), detonated successfully in front of an audience gathered in the desert outside Las Vegas. Tinguely married fellow Swiss artist Eva Aeppli in 1951. In 1971, Tinguely married his second wife, Niki de Saint Phalle with whom he collaborated on several artistic projects such as the Hon – En Katedral or Le Cyclop.