John Baldessari (1931—2020) was born in National City, CA. He attended San Diego State University and did post-graduate work at Otis Art Institute, Chouinard Art Institute, and the University of California at Berkeley. Baldessari was considered one of the most influential artists of his generation. He held memberships in the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He won the Americans for Arts Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 2009, and the National Medal of Arts Award in 2014. Baldessari was the subject of more than 300 solo exhibitions and participated in over 1000 group exhibitions around the world. His output spanned artist’s books, videos, films, billboards, and public works, and his art was included in exhibitions in New York, Europe, and Los Angeles, including “John Baldessari: Pure Beauty,” a retrospective that began at the Tate Modern in London in 2009 and subsequently traveled to the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In 2018, Yale University published John Baldessari Catalogue Raisonné, Volume 5: 2005–2010. He passed away in 2020 at his home in Venice, CA.