César, actually named César Baldaccini, was born in Marseille in 1921. From 1935 to 1939 César studied at the Academy of Marseille and continued his studies at the Academy of Paris from 1943 to 1947. During his years in Paris, the young artist met Picasso and Germaine Richier and lived in the same place as Alberto Giacometti. The first artistic works of César were significantly influenced by these artists. Back then César made his first iron and plaster sculptures. In 1956 the sculptor radically changed his concept and began to create figurative or semi-abstract sculptures by welding scrap metal. César, repeatedly showing that he knew very well how to incorporate current artistic movements into his works, materialised - influenced by the Nouveau Réalisme - the famous "Compressions dirigées" in which he condensed car bodies and metal objects with the help of a skip. The Pop-Art genre also shaped the works of the French sculptor and object artist in the form of colorful plastic objects which were designed as ironic thing-fetishes. César died in Paris on 12 June 1998.