World-renowned conceptual artist John Baldessari was born in National City to Hedvig Jensen, a Danish nurse and Antonio Baldessari, an Italian salvage dealer. In 1970, the artist burnt all of the paintings he had created between 1953 and 1966 as part of a new piece, titled The Cremation Project and moved to Los Angeles.
John Baldessari attended Sweetwater High School and San Diego State College in (BA in 1953, MA in 1957) prior to spending time at Otis Art Institute (1957-59) and Chouinard Art Institute.
Starting off as a painter and educator, John taught art in the San Diego K-12 schools and junior colleges prior to joining UC San Diego in 1968 (alongside Paul Brach, David Antin and others).
While much of his work is based in photography, his early paintings drew from abstract expressionism and early conceptual work juxtaposing images and text. In San Diego this work with his peers Robert Matheny and Russell Baldwin broke the rules on contemporary art in many ways.
In 1970, Baldessari moved to Santa Monica, after burning his unsold work-to-date. Memorialized in his The Cremation Project, those paintings that remained after he held a sale in his movie theater turned studio, Baldessari’s early work while in San Diego is scarce. Using a standard cremation service, John used the ashes, whether baked into cookies or placed into an urn, and commemorative plaque with the destroyed paintings' birth and death dates, to close the chapter of his life in San Diego.
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