John Baldessari Throwing
20th Century Contemporary Abstract Prints
Offset
20th Century Contemporary Abstract Prints
Offset
1970s Conceptual More Prints
Lithograph
Mid-20th Century American Modern Paintings
Canvas, Paint
People Also Browsed
21st Century and Contemporary Danish Mid-Century Modern Wall Mirrors
Brass
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Mid-Century Modern Chandeliers and...
Metal, Aluminum, Brass
21st Century and Contemporary Conceptual Figurative Prints
Etching
Antique Late 19th Century Austrian Chairs
Cane, Beech
21st Century and Contemporary Swedish Mid-Century Modern Table Lamps
Textile
20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Paintings
1980s Conceptual Prints and Multiples
Photogravure
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Color Photography
Giclée, Digital Pigment
Antique 15th Century and Earlier American Natural Specimens
Other
21st Century and Contemporary American Realist Landscape Paintings
Canvas, Oil
Antique 15th Century and Earlier Afghan Natural Specimens
Lapis Lazuli
21st Century and Contemporary Young British Artists (YBA) More Prints
Lithograph, Offset
2010s American Modern Prints
Paper
Vintage 1930s American Posters
Paper
Antique Late 19th Century Austrian Chairs
Cane, Beech
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Black and White Photography
Archival Pigment
Recent Sales
20th Century Italian Photography
Vintage 1970s American Modern Contemporary Art
Paper
1970s Contemporary More Prints
Lithograph, Offset
1970s Conceptual More Prints
Lithograph
1970s Conceptual More Prints
Lithograph
1970s Conceptual More Prints
Lithograph
1970s Conceptual More Prints
Lithograph
1970s Conceptual More Prints
Lithograph
1970s Conceptual More Prints
Lithograph
John Baldessari for sale on 1stDibs
Although Conceptual artist John Baldessari is best known for the richly provocative juxtapositions of photographic images and text that characterize his prints and paintings, he actually had something of a traditional art world upbringing — if such a thing exists.
Born in Southern California, Baldessari earned several art degrees, from art education to art history to painting. He also taught art at various institutions such as the California Institute of the Arts throughout his life. Among his many students were David Salle, Tony Oursler, Jim Shaw and Mike Kelley. While helping to shape the art world in Los Angeles, he simultaneously developed his own name as an artist.
In the 1950s, Baldessari’s works were primarily semiabstract paintings, but during the late 1960s, he began to distance himself from painting, as he bristled at the idea of limiting art to a single medium. Baldessari decided to take his career in a dramatically different direction. He burned all his paintings at a funeral home in San Diego, then incorporated the ashes into cookie dough, producing (nonedible) baked goods for an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
“It was a very public and symbolic act,” he said, “like announcing you’re going on a diet in order to stick to it.”
From that point on, Baldessari took on an MO of experimentation, dabbling in mediums from video to printmaking to sculpture. “I just stare at something and say: Why isn’t that art? Why couldn’t that be art?” he said in an interview in 2008.
The works for which Baldessari is most highly regarded, however, are striking collages of images and text — many of which are seemingly nonsensical — such as Tom’s Hand Grips the Steering, Wheel… (2015), in which the title’s text is displayed beneath a hippopotamus. As such is his body of work: bringing a sense of joviality to the sometimes too-serious world of Conceptual art.
Before he died in 2020, Baldessari was honored with the 2014 National Medal of Arts Award, the Americans for the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award, the Venice Biennale’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement and more.
Find original John Baldessari art on 1stDibs.