Morandi outlined his feet in chalk on the ground when he painted landscapes outdoors so he would not shift position. He only painted dry or artificial flowers, never living ones. He lived his entire life in the same family apartment in Bologna with his three unmarried sisters, never married, and only left Italy three times, all late in life.

He was born in 1890 in Bologna. His father wanted him in the export business. He taught drawing in elementary schools for years before becoming Professor of Etchings at the Bologna Academy of Fine Arts in 1930. He painted the same bottles, boxes, vases, and tins for roughly fifty years. The objects barely changed. The light changed, the colour changed, the spatial relationships changed, but the subjects were the same dozen or so items rearranged on the same table.

He was a heavy smoker, tall with large feet, wore elegant long coats, and disliked being called master. He used a small cardboard frame cut-out to set his compositional boundaries. He died in 1964.