Antonio Biancalani was born in 1948 in Montelupo Fiorentino, in the province of Florence. From an early age he felt a strong calling toward painting. Participating in competitions and national exhibitions made him realize how important it was to deepen both his technical skills and his visual understanding of the figurative arts. He devoted himself increasingly to the study of the human figure, a subject that remains central to his work. Beginning in 1975 and for several years thereafter, he attended the Scuola del Nudo at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. Later, he turned to printmaking, a discipline he has practiced alongside painting ever since. In Biancalani’s canvases, drawing is paramount, because within its lines entire narratives unfold, much like the spirals of rolled-up mattresses or the crumpled sheets he often depicts. Human figures in his work appear either in isolation or suggested by subtle hints, becoming existential presences in a turbulent pictorial space. They resemble images imprinted on old photographic plates on the verge of vanishing, or solitary, flesh-and-blood beings confined in their own physicality.