Born in Rome, Franco Angeli began his artistic career in the atelier of Edgardo Mannucci, with whom he worked from 1957. During that period, Angeli became interested in Alberto Burri’s Art Informel, attracted by the artist’s use of materials and forms. In 1959 he exhibited his works in a group show at the Galleria La Salita di Roma, together with Tano Festa and Giuseppe Uncini. In those years he frequented the bar Rosati, where he came into contact with Renato Guttuso, Pino Pascali, Jannis Kounellis and Fabio Mauri. His first material canvases, characterized by dark colors and layers of transparent veils, date back to the late 1950s. During the 1960s, the artist developed a growing attention to mass imagery, using stereotyped ideological images and symbols taken from the urban context, synthesizing the rhetorical aspect of the artefacts of eternal Rome.

Among his solo and group exhibitions, we can mention:Franco Angeli (Galleria La Salita, Roma, 1960); Nuove prospettive della pittura italiana (Palazzo Re Enzo, Bologna, 1962); Roma New York 1948-1964 (Rayburn Foundation, New York, 1993); Venice Biennale (Venezia, 1978; 1995); Il sogno fotografico di Franco Angeli 1976-1975 (Mercati di Traiano, Musei dei Fori Imperiali, Roma, 2011); Imagine. Nuove immagini nell’arte italiana 1960-69 (Peggy Guggennheim Collection, Venezia, 2016).