Angelo Froglia

Biography

Froglia was the creator of the scandal of the heads of Modigliani.

Angelo Froglia, painter and sculptor from Livorno, attended artistic high school and then enrolled at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. In 1971 he rented a studio and began painting. In 1974 he participated in the Rome Quadriennale. In 1977, during the Years of Lead, he took part in the armed struggle and ended up in jail. At a young age Froglia was involved in drug-taking. In 1981, he was released from prison and moved back to Livorno where he resumed painting and drugs. In 1984, he carried out the act which led his name to appear in all the newspapers of the world: the hoax of the false heads found in the canal in the city of Livorno, and attributed to Amedeo Modigliani.

Froglia also created a video about the event entitled "Peitho e Apate ... della persuasione e dell'inganno (Cherchez Modi)" and was given an award by critics at the Turin Film Festival in 1984. From 1985 Angelo Froglia produced a great number of paintings and organised exhibitions in Italy and abroad, although his health was undermined by drugs. In time he became tired of being known as the protagonist of the "Modigliani Scandal", even though he had never considered it as a "hoax" but rather as a performance of social aesthetic significance. Shortly before his death, Froglia confided to his friend and art critic Massimo Carboni that, "time does not count, I work within my possibilities. The important thing is the conviction that you put into it."(Il Tirreno, January 1997,"Un cuore buono, una mano felice".) Angelo Froglia died following a long illness on 11 January 1997.

Some works