Who is Niki de Saint Phalle?

Niki de Saint Phalle, born Catherine-Marie-Agnès Fal de Saint Phalle (29 October 1930–21 May 2002) was a French sculptor, painter, and film maker. While in Spain, de Saint Phalle read the works of Proust and visited Madrid and Barcelona, where she became deeply affected by the work of Antonio Gaudí. Gaudí's influence opened many previously unimagined possibilities for de Saint Phalle, especially with regard to the use of unusual materials and objets-trouvés as structural elements in sculpture and architecture. De Saint Phalle was particularly struck by Gaudí's "Park Güell" which persuaded her to create one day her own garden-based artwork that would combine both artistic and natural elements.

She is best remembered for the Stravinsky Fountain (or Fontaine des automates) near the Centre Pompidou, Paris (1982)— also featuring works of Jean Tinguely

Jörg Immendorff

Jörg Immendorff was one of the best known contemporary German painters; he was also a sculptor, stage designer and art professor. He was a member of the German art movement Neue Wilde. Best known is his Cafe Deutschland series of sixteen large paintings (1977-1984) that were inspired by Renato Guttuso’s Caffè Greco; in these crowded colorful pictures, Immendorff had disco-goers symbolize the conflict between East and West Germany.

Immendorff was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) in 1998. When he could not paint with his left hand any more, he switched to the right. In 2004 he funded a stipend to research the disease.

In November 2005 he was treated by emergency physicians and was admitted to a hospital, where a tracheotomy had to be performed to help him breathe. As of 2006, he used a wheelchair full-time and did not paint anymore; instead he directed his assistants to paint following his instructions. On May 27, 2007, at age 61, he succumbed to the disease