Located: Shapleigh Fountain (n16) - Download map
Date completed: 1999
Origin: USA
Medium: Polyurethane foam, resin, steel armature, ceramic tiles, glass and tumbled stones
Height: 7 ft.
Installation sponsored by Macy’s

Additional Information

Many pieces in our exhibit are accompanied by a free audio tour and podcast. Links to the audio files are provided below, as well as a transcript of the recording.

Why did Niki Sculpt Animals? (mp3)
Phone: (314) 558-4357 - 16#

Niki said that for many years, a good deal of her work was concerned with bringing joy, color, and an aggressive humor and fantasy to life.

Niki's playful animals were part of her vision of sculpture committed to bringing joy. The colorful mosaics that cover them appeal to both the eye and the body. Niki felt it was very important that both adults and children interact with her sculptures. She loved to see children climb on these animals. Feel free to touch, sit, crawl on, or enter them. Their edges are rounded so that kids can climb on them safely. The concave lap of Cat (n14) is an intimate refuge in which you can curl up.

Nikigator, Seals, Guardian Lions, and Cat descend from the mosaic animals with which Niki surrounded the artist Mario Bottas Ark in their collaborative interpretation of the Noahs Ark story, at the children's zoo in Jerusalem.

---

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39