Jean Tinguely

Born in Fribourg, Switzerland in 1925, he trained at the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule Basel before moving to Paris in 1952, where he joined the Nouveau Réalisme movement alongside Yves Klein and Niki de Saint Phalle, whom he later married. He became known for elaborate motorised sculptures he called Méta-matics, machines that drew, painted, and destroyed themselves. His most famous work, Homage to New York (1960), a twenty-seven-foot self-destructing construction built in the garden of MoMA, caught fire prematurely and was extinguished by the New York Fire Department after twenty-seven minutes. He died in Bern in 1991.