Lot 37 D α

César, whose full name was César Baldaccini, was born in Marseille in 1921. He was a key figure in the French 1960s movement known as Nouveau Réalisme. This aimed to engage directly with reality through using everyday artefacts rather than traditional art materials. He produced the famous "Compressions dirigées" from 1960, for which César compressed car chassis and metal objects in a metal press. Also influenced by Pop-Art César worked on a series known as 'expansions', and experimented with what were for him new materials, such as glass fibre and polyester resin. His 'thumb' was based on a lifesize cast of his own thumb, scaled up using the machines traditionally employed by sculptors to enlarge their works. Le Pouce de César (César's Thumb) in cast iron, in the La Défense quarter, measures twelve metres in height and weighing eighteen tons. It is one of many works by the artist César Baldaccini, which are dispersed throughout Paris. He died on June 12, 1998 in Paris.