The artist Enrico Baj was born on October 31, 1924, in Milan. Baj helped shape the avant-garde of the 1950's by founding the artistic movement "Movimento Nucleare" in 1951 and, together with Asger Jorn, announcing "Le Mouvement international pour une Bauhaus Imaginiste" in 1953. With other artists of the group COBRA, Enrico Baj maintained an intense artistic exchange with others on the cutting-edge of art, including Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, and Yves Klein. Baj developed his own grotesque figure world in his visual works, including paintings, drawings, collages, objects, and sculptures, using these elements against bourgeois conventions and societal and political misunderstandings. He illustrated several books and was himself active as a writer, co-authoring various books on other artists. After his participation in the Biennale in Venice in 1964, many European museums have dedicated exhibitions to Baj's works. Enrico Baj died on June 16, 2003, in Vergiate.