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Art of the 20th Century
Enrico Baj
see also:
Baj Enrico
Enrico Baj
(b Milan, 31 Oct 1924).
Italian painter, sculptor and collagist. He studied painting at the Accademia di Brera, Milan (1945–8), while also studying law at the university there. Although at first influenced by Matisse, in 1951 with Sergio Dangelo (b 1931) he founded ARTE NUCLEARE, which sought, through gestural means similar to Tachism, to express the precariousness of the post-war situation and to revive the avant-garde. Increasingly interested in impasto and surface textures, Baj produced his first collages and assemblages in 1955. In the Curious Couple (1956; Pittsburgh, PA, Carnegie) he combined torn fabric, paper, glass and oil paint in a rather tentative fashion to form the rough, massive puppet-like heads that recur in his work. Following a return to impasto surfaces in the Mountains series (1957–8), he combined texture and objets trouvés in his Generals series (1959–61). For example, in War Hero (collage, 1959; Chicago, IL, Mus. Contemp. A.) he used fabric, paper, ribbons and a medal. The Generals have ill-defined figures with truncated limbs, and their flattened and brightly patterned bodies are adorned with a variety of actual military insignia. The versatility of Baj’s technique led at this time to contacts with such contemporaries as Arman, Piero Manzoni and Yves Klein and with figures associated with Surrealism such as André Breton and Marcel Duchamp.
