Biography

Francesco Arcangeli (Bologna, 1915–1974) was a poet, critic and art historian.

1915

He was born in Bologna on 10 July 1915, the youngest of four siblings: Nino, a musician and music critic, Gaetano, a poet and writer, and Bianca, a painter.

1933

On 6 November, he enrolled in the Faculty of Letters at the University of Bologna, with the idea of studying history and literature.

1934

On 1 December, he attended Roberto Longhi’s famous lecture Momenti della pittura bolognese [Moments in Bolognese Painting] and was so impressed by it that he changed his university specialisation.

Longhi introduced a new vision of Bolognese painting for art criticism, including Giorgio Morandi as its last exponent.

His fellow students included Giorgio Bassani, Alberto Graziani and Antonio Rinaldi. At that time, he began to frequent the studio of Giorgio Morandi.

1937

On 10 November, he graduated with honours with a thesis on “Jacopo di Paolo in the development of Bolognese painting. The frescoes in the Chapterhouse of Pomposa”.

Between 1937 and 1942

He worked with Longhi as a volunteer assistant.

1941

Between 1941 and 1943 he taught Art History at Liceo Minghetti in Bologna.

1942

He published ”Tarsie” [inlays], his first essay on the history of art.

1943

On 23 May, he was arrested and charged with anti-fascist activity. Giorgio Morandi, Cesare Gnudi, Giuseppe Raimondi and Antonio Rinaldi were also arrested with him. After a week of investigations, he was released.

On 25 September, his house on Via Righi was completely destroyed during the bombing of the city.

The Vallecchi publishing house in Florence published the collection of poems Polvere del tempo [Dust of Time], written between 1937 and 1942.

1943–1945

In December 1943, he volunteered at the Office of the Superintendent of Galleries in Bologna to help safeguard works of art threatened by the war.

Temporarily employed as a “level-one assistant inspector”, he carried out surveys of bombed buildings and was responsible for moving some of the area’s masterpieces to the north, including Raphael’s Ecstasy of Santa Cecilia.

After the armistice, he resigned on 29 May 1945 in order to resume his university studies.

1948

He received the award for Italian art criticism at the Venice Biennale for his review of the exhibition L’Impressionismo a Venezia [Impressionism in Venice], published in Rassegna d’Italia.

With Cesare Gnudi and the collaboration of Roberto Longhi, he edited the catalogue of the Mostra celebrativa di Giuseppe Maria Crespi [Giuseppe Maria Crespi Celebrative Exhibition] held in Bologna and Milan between June and October.

He submitted his second and last collection of poetry, Stella sola [Lone Star], for consideration in the Libera Stampa prize in Lugano (the collection was not published until 1996).

1950

As secretary and member of the executive committee, he was involved in the exhibition of 14th-century Bolognese painting held between May and July in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Bologna. The exhibition was curated by Roberto Longhi, who in the meantime had moved to the University of Florence.

He began working with Paragone, a militant magazine that published art and literary history and criticism, founded in Florence by Roberto Longhi.

He published important articles on art history in Paragone, such as “Tracce di Wiligelmo a Cremona” [Traces of Wiligelmo in Cremona] (1950), “Sugli inizi dei Carracci”[On the Beginnings of the Carracci] (1956), as well as on criticism, for instance “Gli ultimi naturalisti” [The Last Naturalists] (1954) and “Una situazione non improbabile”[A Not Unlikely Situation] (1957).

1952

He collaborated on the Mostra della pittura del Seicento a Rimini[Exhibition of Seventeenth-century Painting in Rimini].

From 1952 to 1957 he taught at the Liceo Massimo D’Azeglio in Turin and the Liceo Gian Domenico Romagnosi in Parma.

1958

He was appointed director of the Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna in Bologna, and in 1961 he oversaw its relocation to Villa delle Rose and the design of a new layout. He remained in charge until 1967, adding some major acquisitions to the museum’s collections.

From 1958 to 1962

He worked on the catalogues of three major exhibitions at the Bologna Art Biennials: I Carracci (1956), Maestri della pittura del Seicento emiliano [Masters of Seventeenth-century Painting in Emilia] (1959) and L’ideale Classico del Seicento in Italia e la pittura di paesaggio di paesaggio [The Classical Ideal of the Seventeenth Century in Italy and Landscape Painting] (1962).

1960

He began to draft his monograph on Giorgio Morandi for the Il Milionegallery in Milan.

1961

During the summer, disagreements arose with Morandi over the contents of the monograph. The tension escalated to such an extent that it became irremediable and led to a mutually painful rift.

1962

The monographs on Ennio Morlotti (1962) and Bastianino (1963) were published.

1964

Giorgio Morandi died on 18 June. On 31 July, Il Milione published Arcangeli’s heavily revised monograph.

1966

In Grizzana, he curated the exhibition Omaggio a Morandi [Tribute to Morandi].

1967

He was appointed professor of Medieval and Modern Art History at the University of Bologna.

He began teaching a three-year course entitled “Corpo, azione, sentimento, fantasia: naturalismo ed espressionismo nella tradizione artistica emiliano-bolognese” [Body, Action, Feeling, Imagination: Naturalism and Expressionism in the Traditional Art of Emilia-Bologna].

1968

The Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei awarded him the Antonio Feltrinelli Prize for art criticism. During the awards ceremony, he delivered the speech “Uno sforzo per la storia dell’arte” [An Endeavour for the History of Art].

1970

In the academic year 1970–71, he began his fourth university course, “Dal romanticismo all’informale” [From Romanticism to Informalism]: the handouts were published in 1977.

He curated the exhibition Natura ed espressione nell’arte bolognese-emiliana [Nature and Expression in Bolognese-Emilian Art], which he himself considered to be the end point of a research project lasting 25 years.

1972

At the Venice Biennale, for the Italian Pavilion “Opera”, he curated an exhibition that, together with “Comportamento”, curated by Renato Barilli, represented the central theme of the Biennale that year.

In Paragone, he published the essay “Lo spazio romantico” [The Romantic Space]. 

1973

He published the monograph Graham Sutherland.

1974

He died on 14 February.