John Baldessari

John Anthony Baldessari (June 17, 1931 – January 2, 2020) was an American conceptual artist known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images. Born in National City, California, Baldessari moved to Venice, California, in the 1960s where he began creating art from photographs and found images. He was a professor at the California Institute of the Arts and was known for his playful and humorous works. His works often combined text and image to question the role of the artist and the nature of art. He often used humor and irony to disrupt traditional art conventions and was a key figure in the Conceptual Art movement. Baldessari's work is held in the collections of several major museums including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.