Agostino Cancogni was born in Forte dei Marmi on 26 November 1950. After graduating from the Liceo Artistico in Carrara at 19, he went on to study sculpture at the Accademia. Richly gifted and naturally talented, Cancogni honed his abilities through passionate study of anatomy and classical drawing. He loves sculpture – a deep-rooted, visceral love inherited from his father, also a sculptor. Having passed through various thematic cycles, from the surreal to a Caravaggesque naturalism, he has now arrived at the concerns of form, light and colour so dear to the artistic tradition. He first exhibited in 1970 at the Galleria Orlando in Forte dei Marmi. He has held numerous solo shows in Italy and abroad and taken part in national and international art fairs. He has been featured in many art catalogues, magazines and newspapers, and his works are held in private collections in Italy and abroad.
His subjects emerge from memory, filtered through superimpositions or reflections, in a recovery of the real image that is nonetheless mediated by recollection.
He is a painter who, starting from the depiction of objective reality, arrives at an entirely personal vision, distilled in the formal balance of the composition, the carefully controlled dialogue between drawing and colour, and a gift for lifelike rendering, all within a harmonious whole.