The Larger than Life Tarot of Niki de Saint Phalle in Giardino Dei Tarocchi, Capalbio, Italia

written by Kathryn Turley-Sonne

The Tarot Garden Museum in Capalbio, Italy, is a non-profit foundation established by the artist Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) prior to her death. The garden opened to the public in 1998, but work continued until 2002. Saint Phalle considered the sculptural park to be her life’s work. She spent twenty years planning and constructing the enormous figures of the Major Arcana from the tarot deck. She actually lived inside the structure of the Empress while working on other figures. Saint Phalle was inspired by Antoni Gaudi and his work at Parc Güell in Barcelona, Spain, which she visited in 1955. Although plagued by health and financial obstacles, she continued to work with what she considered complete freedom. “Saint Phalle’s oeuvre culminates in Tarot Garden, a place where people of all ages can seek their own meaning in the logic of the tarot embodied here in an expressive architecture that permits mystery and organic movement through spaces” (Katrib 19). It was encouraging on my visit to see numerous school buses arrive with children coming to the museum to understand the history and artistic interpretation of an occult topic like the tarot. 

"While focusing intensely on the tarot sculptures, Niki had experiences shared by many tarot artists and authors – she felt the tarot archetypes working through her life in a very tangible manner. In an interview with Prince Michael of Greece she said, “not only am I making the tarot cards, I am also living them, playing with forces that must be respected…Ever since I started work here I’ve been living outside of time.”

In 1985, Niki created a limited-edition book, Tarot Cards in Sculpture by Niki de Saint Phalle, illustrated with her tarot art, photos of the garden under construction, and her hand-lettered comments. In 2002, she issued a serigraphic major arcana deck in fifteen colors based on her drawings of the Tarot Garden sculptures. Niki de Saint Phalle’s art and life were an outpouring of joy, vitality, intense color, and fearless self-expression. Tarot was essential to her artistic vision." 

A feminist view of de Saint Phalle’s work rings just as true now as it did when the garden was established. Women are still systematically denied power and rage and devalued through sexist archetypes. Considering the United States Supreme Court's recent decision to rescind Roe vs. Wade and withdraw women’s rights to make decisions over their own bodies, instilling another element of patriarchal control over the body, de Saint Phalle’s work to reclaim her own body, along with the symbolic body of the feminine – through the tarot figures as well as in her other artwork, appears even more essential. While de Saint Phalle offers a palette and path of feminine joy, she still reminds us of the dire need for social justice and resistance: in Homage to Jasper John, she shot a pouch of pigment, and paint exploded, like blood, onto a coat hanger.

Niki de Saint Phalle

While her piece Red Witch (1962-3), is an assemblage that depicts a woman within whom there are many contradicting images, such as the Virgin Mary and a demon, symbolizing the multiple faces of womankind. 

“She was the first free woman I saw,” iconic feminist Gloria Steinem once remarked after seeing Niki de Saint Phalle in the streets of New York. While de Saint Phalle would never claim to be free from patriarchal violence, her art charts the work of an artist seeking to become free. Her continual work on behalf of women artists and the economics that constrict them, as well as her ardent efforts on behalf of AIDS victims, exemplify her social justice contributions.

Katrib, Ruba. Niki de Saint Phalle: Structures for Life. MoMA PS1. New York: Distributed Art 

Publishers, 2021.