Giuseppe Franco Angeli, born in Rome on 14 May 1935, was one of the most popular Italian artists of second half of XX century.
Having never attended regular art classes, Angeli began painting in 1957 when stationed in Orvieto on military service, because as he explained later: “when you feel a deep malaise, you must look for a way not to be lonely. In short, you need to find an interest that will accompany you in life.” The bombing of San Lorenzo on 1943, influenced his first works. In his opinion, "matter for me is a fragment of this huge wound that devastated Europe; my first paintings were like that—like a wound from which I removed pieces of a bandage."
From this inherently political groundwork, Angeli's art found its own political charge. His membership in the Italian Communist Party left marks in his initial approaches to painting. These marks faded after he departed the party and drew closer to the more radical leftist and Maoist movements.