Paolo Canciani was born in Milan, Italy. After his classical studies, he learns how to play the piano at the Civic School of Music in Milan and at the Conservatory of Music as a private student. At that time, he joins the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera. Later he gets a diploma at the Institute of Arts and Design: History of Costume and Textile, History of Art, Scenery and Interiors.

He works as designer for the American Ken Scott, painter and couturier, in the workshop in Milan. Stimulus and support come also from the painter and friend Susan Nevelson. At that time, while working on several groupages and taking advertisement photographs for the best fashion magazines he gets in touch with the greatest photographers such as David Bailey, Barry Lategan and others, which helps him to make remarkable experiences and to develop his own research on Image. A turning point is his meeting with photographer Horst,

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whom he could learn style and advice from, during a stay in Milan: such event will be definitely unforgettable and significant. He encounters so many painters as representatives of a new figurative realism. He often travels to Greece where his own passion for archeology will be properly fed and essentially rooted in his style.

1980-99 Since the late '70s he has started to work artistically within the so-called "citationist painting", giving a particular care to neo-classicism and coming out as one of the greatest representatives. The whole knowledge is applied to other expressions of art. In 1980 he starts up a studio with his wife Tullia, a designer. Both of them work as designers and interior designers through drawing fabric patterns, objects and pieces of furniture.
Since 1980 he alterned his activity as designer and interior-designer and painter, introducing himself to the public officially through his first exhibitions.

After he has dedicated his art to celebrate the world of Sport through the "Studies on the Athletes", he passes to a sort of magic realism connected with citationists. He painted portraits of olympic champions as well as characters of the show business: one of them is the actor Fabio Lanzoni "the faboulous".
Some athletes of the series "New men-bodybuilders" of 1983 are exhibited at the Club Francesco Conti of Milan, Italy. Some boxers of 1980 are on show at the Gym Club Forte in Milan. Some athletes of the series "Divers and Swimmers" of 1982 will be at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Following the exhibition-celebration dedicated to Villa Kérylos in 1994 and presented at the Rotonde de Beaulieu on the Côte d' Azur, the cycle on Greece passing to scalptured figures characterized by audacious features of the images. His work "Dans l'andron", a tempera painting on cardboard belongs to the series "Hommage à la Villa Kérylos" is exhibited at the Honour Hall in the Villa Grecque Kérylos Museum, France. Canciani as "cultivated painter" appears in a monograph "Portrait of Contemporary Art", 1995 and "Floral Decorations in Art" Comed 1997.

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He has obtained prizes and awards, one of these is a Throphy of the European Community for Painting in 1993. He is present in the catalogues on Modern Art Mondadori, Comed Editions, A.C.C.A. Editions, Artexpo New York 1998-1999. In 1998 he exhibits as the honoured guest in the prestigious Hofstra University in New York. Many articles are written in Art Magazines and important daily newspapers, such as Art Business News, Arte, Best Looking Magazine, Corriere della Sera, Casa Vogue, Il Giornale, La Notte, Le Figaro, Nice Matin, Panorama, Uomo Vogue, Vogue Italia.