Born in Ancona, Italy, Cagli became an exceptional artist in a new generation of art in the first half of the Twentieth Century. With other up and coming artists of the period, Giuseppe Capogrossi and Emanuele Cavalli, they became know as the New Roman School of Painting. He painted well known murals in his early years and went on to experiment in a Neo-Cubist style and metaphysical works.
He is an award winning artist as recipient of both a 1946 Guggenheim award and a 1954 Marzotto award. The Marzotto award was given between 1951 and 1968 to artists and thinkers who contributed to the cultural rebirth of Italy after the war, provided by the Marzotto fashion company in Valdagno, Italy.
Some of his early exhibitions in Italy included appearances for the Gallery of Art of Rome and the 1936 Milan Triennial Exhibition. From the latter, Cagli presented his piece, The Battle of San Martino to the Uffizi Gallery in 1983.
Cagli also exhibited work in New York City in the Comet Gallery in the late 1930s. The artist again returned to New York after fleeing Europe during World War II. After becoming a U.S. citizen he even served in the U.S. armed services. From his exposure to some of the Nazi concentration camps in Germany, he created drawings of the experience and its impact.
After the War’s end, Calgi returned to his artistic home of Rome where he experimented in his informal works. In August of 1972 he was the official banner painter for the Palio di Siena (Sienna’s annual Palio or horse Race), of which he said, “The Palio either in some ways becomes a painting, a representation of life, if only in allegorical form, or it becomes a kind of tapestry, an abstract and geometrical composition of symbols and references consecrated by tradition. His early mural paintings were on a building on Sistina Street and in a hall on Vantaggio Street in Rome.