Pontus Hulten, 20th-century art critic and historian and first director of the Centre Pompidou, had a special relationship with the artist couple Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle. As director of the Moderna Museet in the early 1960s, Pontus Hulten commissioned major exhibitions from the two artists, including Hon: a Cathedral. This relationship continued with his appointment as the first director of the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 1977, where Jean Tinguely had participated in the opening exhibitions with Crocodrome, a collective work created with Bernard Luginbühl, Niki de Saint Phalle, Daniel Spoerri, Robert Rauschenberg and Martial Raysse.

In 1983, as part of the development of the Centre Pompidou, the City of Paris commissioned the Stravinsky Fountain from Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely, a collective work.

It was mainly thanks to the support of Claude Pompidou that this fountain was able to be created jointly by the two artists, as the memory of their collaboration on Paradis fantastique still frightened the sponsors, who feared a work in the same style, as Pontus Hulten later testified. This greeting card is therefore a testament to one of the most important public patronage relationships of the post-war period.