About

Franco Angeli was born in Rome on May 14, 1935 was an Italian artist and painter. His training is completely self-taught. After a start conditioned by Burri’s informal art, he created works in which the canvas alternated with cotton gauze stained with paint, from which images and symbols of power and violence emerged, such as imperial eagles, swastikas, Capitoline wolves (La lupa di Rome, 1961), hammers and sickles, dollars and crosses, which underline the theme of memory. 

Angeli becomes one of the main exponents of the famous Scuola di Piazza del Popolo, established by the same author together with Mario Schifano and Tano Festa, with whom he shares a long and fruitful path that will lead them to become the leading exponents of Italian pop art. The three met by chance on the occasion of the “Cinecittà Award” painting exhibition in October 1960, promoted by the PCI. 

In 1964 he was present at the Venice Biennale, an event that introduced the artists of American pop art to Italy; he also intervenes at the XI Quadrennial in Rome.In 1968 he created, for the Teatro delle Mostre at the La Tartaruga gallery, the installation Opprimente, that is a white room with a ceiling lowered by a layer of polystyrene. 

During the seventies he approached the themes of political commitment (such as the war in Vietnam), and then turned to figurative subjects such as moons, pyramids, airplanes, obelisks, testimony of his travels to the East. The techniques used range from oil and enamels on canvas, to watercolor on paper, then passing from photographic transfers to screen printing. He died in Rome on November 12, 1988.