Angelo Sottosanti was born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, on June 21, 1917. His art education began at the Beaux Arts Institute of Design and the Art Students League, in NYC. He also attended the Da Vinci School (NYC). In 1938 he worked on subway murals for the New York arm of the Works Progress Administration. The following year he toured Mexico on a motorcycle with a sidecar full of art supplies, inspired by Mexican artist Jose Clemente Orozco. While in Mexico he painted the countryside and the people he met on his travels down to Tehuantepec.

In 1940, Sottosanti's paintings were accepted and exhibited at the Fine Arts Building at the Golden Gate International Exposition (GGIE) on Treasure Island in San Francisco. While there he also worked for Diego Rivera, grinding and mixing color for his fresco mural in the "Art in Action" section of the exposition. In 1941, Sottosanti, like many other New Deal artists, took up residence in the famous "Monkey Block" building in San Francisco. In the 1940s and 1950s, he held solo exhibits at the Palace of Fine Arts, the San Francisco Museum of Art, and the Crocker Museum in Sacramento as well as in many San Francisco galleries. His subjects include women, Mexican scenes, musicians and Chinatown in all media.

Sottosanti died in Davis, California in 2004.

Group exhibitions: GGIE, 1939; Museum of Modern Art (NY) 1938; CA State Fair, 1960; SF Art Festival, 1978.

Solo exhibitions: Paul Elder's Gallery (SF), 1940; CPLH, 1948; Crocker Museum, Sac., 1948; Maxwell Galleries (1956); SFMA (1958); American Savings and Loan (1984)