1930 Saint Phalle
Catherine Marie-Agnès de Saint Phalle was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine on October 29, under the sign of Scorpio (her rising sign Scorpio as well). She is the second of five children born to Jeanne Jacqueline née Harper and André Marie Fal de Saint Phalle. Her father is one of seven brothers sharing ownership of the family's banking house. When the stock market collapses in 1929, he loses both his share of the business and his own fortune. Marie-Agnès is sent to live with her paternal grandparents in the French countryside, where she spends the next three years.

1933
Marie-Agnès is reunited with her parents in Greenwich, Connecticut. She often spends her summer holidays at the Château de Filerval, owned by her maternal grandfather.

1937
The family moves into an appartment on East 88th Street in New York. Marie-Agnès, now known as Niki, attends the Convent School of the Sacred Heart in East 91st Street.

1941
Niki is expelled from the Convent School. She is sent to Princeton, New Jersey, to live with her maternal grandparents who have left France in the wake of the Second World War. She attends the local public school.

1942
Niki de Saint Phalle returns to her parents' home and attends Brearly School in New York. An avid reader, she is especially fascinated by Edgar Allan Poe, Shakespeare's plays and Greek tragedy. She takes part in school performances and writes her first plays and poems, among which La Peste ("The Plague").

1944
Niki applies bright red paint over the fig leaves held modestly by the sculpted Greek figures adorning the grounds of Brearly School. Her headmistress orders that she either undergo psychiatric treatment or leave the school. Her parents send her to another Convent School in Suffren, New York.

1947
Niki graduates from Oldfield High School, Maryland.

1948-1949
She starts a career as a model. Photographs of her appear in Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and on the cover of Life Magazine. She is only 18 when she elopes with Harry Mathews, who is one year older. On June 6, 1949, they are declared husband and wife by a judge in a New York courthouse.

1950
In February, upon Niki's mother's insistent request, Niki and Harry are wed in the French Church in New York. A few months later, they move to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Harry studies music at Harvard University while Niki produces her first oils and gouaches.

1951
On April 23, their daughter Laura is born.

1952
Niki, Harry and Laura leave Massachusetts and move to Paris. Harry Mathews, who dreams of becoming a conductor, furthers his study at l'Ecole Normale de Musique. Niki enrols in drama school. They both actively take care of their daughter. In the summer months, the family travels to the South of France as well as Spain and Italy, visiting every art museum and cathedral along their way. The idea that cathedrals were considered by their builders as the realization of a collective ideal, rather than as a master builder's signature piece, makes great impression on Niki at the time. It will later inspire and guide her in her own work.

1953
Niki suffers a severe nervous breakdown, and receives treatment in a psychiatric hospital in NICE. Finding that painting is helping her ideal, she decides to give up acting and become an artist instead. Around the same time, Harry Mathews abandons his music studies and sets out to write his first novel.

1954
In March, the couple returns to Paris, where they share a house with Anthony Bonner, an American jazz musician and composer. Niki is introduced to the American painter Hugh Weiss, who will become her mentor over the next five years and persist in encouraging her to retain her style as an autodidact. In September, Niki, Harry and Laura move to Deyá on the island of Mallorca, off the Spanish coast.

1955
Their son Philip is born on May 1st. Niki visits Madrid and Barcelona, where she discovers the work of Gaudi. These visits, especially the one she makes to Güell Park, change her life and give her the idea of one day creating her own sculpture garden.