Gianfranco Baruchello

(Italian, born 1924)

Gianfranco Baruchello is a contemporary Italian artist known for his experimentation with a variety of media. Baruchello’s primary focus has led to a lifelong investigation of the human mind through drawings and paintings of symbols, systems, and words. “Every new work I make functions as a tool, a device to understand and test if my language is still working,” he has explained. Born in 1924 in Livorno, Italy, Baruchello studied law and later helped run his father’s business. A self-taught artist, his earliest works consisted of paintings based on the small details of his daily life. After moving to Paris in the early 1960s, he had a fateful meeting with Marcel Duchamp, who would become a lifelong friend. Baruchello later traveled to New York, where he met John Cage, and took part in the group exhibition “New Realists” at the Sidney Janis Gallery. After inheriting an abandoned villa outside of Rome in the early 1970s, the artist established a farm where he grows crops and raises cattle and sheep. The 94 year old currently divides his time between Rome, Italy and Paris, France. Today, Baruchello’s works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, among others.