Description
Enrico Baj*
(Milan 1926 – 2003 Vergiate)
The General
mixed media on paper 65 x 50 cm
signed Baj
ESTIMATE °€ 80 – € 100
STARTING PRICE €80
Enrico Baj was an Italian artist. Baj was born into a wealthy family; he left Milan in 1944 to avoid military service for the fascist Italian Social Republic. After the war, Baj studied at the Faculty of Law at the University of Milan and at the Brera Academy of Art. In 1951, he founded an artists’ group campaigning against nuclear war with Sergio Dangelo. Baj was editor of *Movimento Nucleare*, the *Manifesto della pittura nucleare* and *Contro lo Stile*, as well as, with Asger Jorn, the magazine *Il Gesto*. He was a leading figure in the Italian avant-garde and a lifelong supporter of the anarchist movement. Many of his works reveal an almost obsessive preoccupation with nuclear war. He created prints, sculptures and, above all, collages. He showed affinities with Surrealism and Dadaism and was later associated with Pop Art. His written works are classified as avant-garde, and he often collaborated with Umberto Eco and others. From the mid-1960s onwards, Baj was a very active member of the Collège de ‘Pataphysique; in 2022 he was elevated to the rank of “Transcendent Satrap”, following in the footsteps of Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst before him. Baj’s best-known work is a series of “Generals”: absurdly exaggerated figures made from found objects such as belts and medals. In 1972, an exhibition of one of his major works, *Funerali dell’anarchico Pinelli* (Funeral of the Anarchist Pinelli), was held after the murder of a police officer – who was blamed for Pinelli’s death – had been banned. The image pays homage to Carlo Carrà’s famous painting “Funerali dell’anarchico Galli”. Baj’s work remained political. In his final years, he created a series of protests against the right-wing government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi from 1994 onwards.
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