Piero Pizzi Cannella was born in 1955 in Rocca di Papa. During the 1970s, he attended the Alberto Viveri's painting course in Rome at the Accademia di Belle Arti. After an initial movement towards conceptual art, Pizzi Cannella began a period of research and experimentation. His first exhibition was held in 1977 at La Stanza, a Roman gallery managed by the artists themselves (who included Bruno Ceccobelli, Stefano di Stasio, and Giuseppe Gallo).
Pizzi Cannella returned quickly to painting and the study of grand masters of the past such as Piero della Francesca, Goya, and Rembrant, from whom he drew inspiration. In 1980, he took part in the group exhibition “Una mostra di sei pittori," A show of six painters, at the galleria La Tartaruga in Rome. During those years, a strong friendship developed between the artist and Nunzio. Pizzi Cannella began living in the Roman neighborhood of San Lorenzo, and with Bruno Ceccobelli, Nunzio, Gianni Dessì, Giuseppe Gallo and Marco Tirelli he created the “Gruppo di San Lorenzo”. The group's first exhibition, “Ateliers”, was curated by Achille Bonito Oliva.
In 1984, Pizzi Cannella started to collaborate with the galleria L'Attico di Fabio Sargentini, a partnership that would last for some time. At the end of the 1980s, the artist began to exhibit in numerous galleries both in Italy, at the Studio d'Arte Cannaviello of Milan, at the galleria d'Alessandro Bagnai of Sienna, with Paolo Gentili in Florence, at the Galerie Triebold, and again at the Attico, and abroad, with Annina Nosei of New York, at the Folker Skulima Gallery of Berlin, at the Triebold of Basel, with Bernard Vidal and Nello di Meo in Paris. The artist's continuous research brought him to the creation of cycles of pieces on different themes, such as the dresses of Turkey, iron, jewelry, and flowers.
In 1991, a new cycle of works, that which focuses on the Gulf War, was presented by Achille Bonito Oliva at the Museo Civico of Gibellina. During the same year, Pizzi Cannella participated in the collective exhibition of the San Lorenzo group, “Roma Interna”, at the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig in Vienna. In 1992, again with the San Lorenzo group, he participated in the show “Una generazione a Roma” between Perugia and Umbertilde. In 1993, he took part in the Biennial of Venice and in 1996, the Quadrennial of Rome. In 1997, Pizzi Cannella had his firm anthological exhibition in Siena. The Museo d'Aosta dedicates an exhibition to Pizzi Cannella's works on paper in 2001. In 2003, the Castello Colonna Centro Internazionale per l'Arte Contemporanea of Genazzano held a personal exhibition on Pizzi Cannella's polyptych cycle. In 2004, at the Teatro India of Rome, another personal exhibition took place with the “Mappe del Mondo” (Maps of the World) and the galleria Otto of Bologna. The same exhibition was then repeated at Rome's MACRO.
Today Piero Pizzi Cannella is internationally known and is one of the most original figures of a generation of artists that have given, over the course of the 1980s, a new interpretation of the object: simple and often austere. Today, Pizzi Cannella lives and works in Rome.