The Sprengel Museum in Hanover continues to celebrate until February 14, 2026, with a major exhibition marking the 25th anniversary of the donation that Niki de Saint Phalle made to the museum. In 2000, she gave a significant portion of her work to Hanover. The museum has reached the halfway point of the exhibition "Niki. Kusama. Murakami," which runs until February 14, 2026, and expects to welcome up to 200,000 visitors in total.
The origin of the artist's special relationship with Hanover lies in the city's Art Association. On March 2, 1969, the first retrospective of the artist in Germany opened there. However, this groundbreaking exhibition was marked by an unusual incident that has only recently come to light through archival research.
The Art Association has been working to organize its archives since Christoph Platz-Gallus took over as director three years ago, cataloging materials from 193 years of history - the Art Association was founded in 1832. During this process, surprising insights about Niki de Saint Phalle have emerged. A complete box of acid-free cardboard contains materials from the consequential 1969 Niki exhibition, including the final report that the then Art Association director Rudolf Jüdes sent to "the very esteemed Countess Niki" on March 27 - ten days before the end of the exhibition.
Jüdes wrote that her "beautiful exhibition" had attracted 16,000 visitors. Of the 1,450 printed catalogs, 1,000 were sold and 300 were sent free to museums and other institutions. During the exhibition, 29 of the displayed works were sold for a total price of 16,136 Deutsche Marks. This sum provides context for understanding another central figure in the balance sheet that the director concealed in his letter: although the exhibition was artistically one of the Art Association's greatest successes, it was a significant financial loss, with a deficit of nearly 20,000 Deutsche Marks.
Perhaps this explains why Jüdes ventured to request that the artist provide a larger edition of a sculpture as an annual gift. Such serial works are still sold in many art associations today to enable members to build their own collections and to supplement their own budgets. Niki had already provided 100 copies of a print for this purpose. "A new idea would be to issue as an annual gift not a serigraph, but a Mini-Nana (small sculpture) also in an edition of 100 copies," the director wrote to the Countess. "For the members of the Art Association, this would be a great attraction." No response letter from Niki de Saint Phalle has been preserved, and the Mini-Nanas never went into series production there.
How great the attraction of precisely these sculptures was at the time - whose larger sisters would be installed five years later at Leibniz-Ufer amid lively discussion in the city community - is shown by another document from the archive. A visitor to the Niki de Saint Phalle exhibition at the Hanover Art Association apparently fell too deeply in love with one of the small, colorfully painted sculptures displayed under the name Mini-Nana, according to a press release from the Art Association dated March 17, 1969. One of these figures disappeared without a trace from the exhibition rooms, necessitating a report against unknown persons for theft.
During the time when the theft must have occurred - Friday, March 14, 1969, between 12:30 PM and 1:00 PM - more than 300 visitors were in the exhibition, the Art Association reported in the document. After criminal police investigations had already begun, the Mini-Nana reappeared on the afternoon of the same day: it was found wrapped on a step of the staircase in the Art Association building. When unwrapped, the sculpture felt ice-cold. Therefore, the report concluded, it must be assumed that it had already left the building and was later returned by the admirer in "active repentance."
This historical incident adds a colorful footnote to the remarkable relationship between Niki de Saint Phalle and Hanover, a connection that began with this pioneering 1969 exhibition and culminated in her generous donation to the Sprengel Museum three decades later. The Art Association has now made historical film footage from the 1969 exhibition available on its website, showing a sharp-witted young artist confidently defending her work and feminist views.
