César Baldaccini was born of Italian parents in Marseilles, France, on 1 January 1921. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Marseilles (1935-39) and at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (1943-48). For reasons of economy he began to use scrap metal for his sculptures while working at Trans, Provence, in 1952. He held his first solo exhibition of welded metal sculptures at the Galerie Lucien Durand, Paris, in 1954. In 1955 he exhibited with Karel Appel at Galerie Rive Droite, Paris, where he exhibited again the following year with Alberto Burri. After 1956 his work began to be shown abroad: at the Venice biennale in 1956, at Hannover Gallery, London, and at the Bienal, Sâo Paulo, in 1957. In 1960 César exhibited his 'Compressions' at the Salon de Mai, Paris. That year he joined the 'New Realists' group with Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely, Arman, and others, exhibiting with the group in nice in 1961 and in Munich in 1963. At the Salon de Main in 1967, César introduced the first of his polyurethane 'Expansions'. In 1976 a retrospective exhibition of his work was mounted by the Musée Rath, Geneva, which toured major European cities. His work was included in the important survey exhibition '1960: Les Nouveaux Réalistes', held at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1986. César lives and works in Paris.