Corneliu Baba was born in 1906 in Craiova. He was the third son of Gheorghe Baba, a church painter, and Mathilde Baba. He spent his childhood and adolescence in Craiova and Caransebeș (his father’s hometown), where he devoted himself to his two passions: music and literature.
In 1926, he moved to Bucharest to enroll at the Academy of Fine Arts and the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy. After only one semester, he abandoned his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, declaring himself discouraged by the professors and the environment. In 1930, he graduated from the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy, where he attended lectures by Nae Ionescu, P. P. Negulescu, and Tudor Vianu. He spent the following years in Timișoara, where he came into contact with a group of young progressive and protest-oriented artists, whose attitudes and artistic approach he soon rejected. This period was marked by searching and disillusionment, and his desire to go abroad became increasingly strong.
In 1934, his first painting exhibition took place, organized together with his father in Băile Herculane. There, he was noticed by an influential lawyer from Iași, Omar Popovici. Through his support, Baba moved to the Moldavian city and enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts, in the class of Professor Nicolae Tonitza. Although he had initially planned to stay in Iași for only two or three months, Corneliu Baba remained in the capital of Moldavia for 16 years. During this time, he completed his painting studies and later worked as an assistant and professor at the Academy of Fine Arts.
In a 20th century shaken by contradictory ideologies, philosophies, and aesthetic doctrines, Baba stubbornly chose to remain within the conventions of classical painting language and representational codes, considered outdated by many. Among Romanian artists, he was inspired by Nicolae Grigorescu and Nicolae Tonitza, while among European masters, his influences included El Greco, Francisco Goya, and Rembrandt. The main genres he explored include self-portraiture and portraiture, the harlequin–mad king motif, socially engaged portraiture, landscape, and still life. His works have been exhibited in cities such as Tokyo, New York, Beijing, Brussels, Moscow, and Berlin.
Among his most important distinctions are the State Prize for Art (1954) and the Excellence Award granted by the Romanian Cultural Foundation (1997). He was a full member of the Romanian Academy, an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts, and a corresponding member of the Academy in Berlin. Corneliu Baba passed away in 1997 in Bucharest.