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Son of the playwright Luigi Pirandello, Fausto trained first as a sculptor, attending the studio of Sigismondo Lipinski, and then from 1920, as a painter, at the Libera Scuola di Nudo of the Academy of Rome, under the guidance of Felice Carena. The first works are graphic and are influenced by Klimt's Viennese Secession and German expressionism which he had the opportunity to admire at the "Roman Secession Exhibition" in 1913. In 1923 he began to paint, making his debut two years later at the Rome Biennale and then to that of Venice. In 1927 he left with his friend Giuseppe Capogrossi for Paris, where he came into contact with the work of Cézanne, Matisse and the Cubists, and with the Italian painters Severini, Tozzi, De Chirico and Campigli, fundamental in the definition of his artistic language of the thirties. In 1931 he visited Vienna and Berlin, deepening his knowledge of Expressionism. Back in Rome he held his first solo exhibition at the Galleria di Roma. From this moment he began an intense exhibition activity in the main Italian exhibitions. The painting of the Thirties, after a tonal phase, close to the Roman School, in particular to Mafai and Scipione, evolves autonomously, according to a personal re-elaboration of European suggestions and the great ancient tradition, with anti-classical works, with a strong component material and with an original compositional layout. The subjects are those of everyday life, still lifes and views. Since 1937 he has been linked to the La Cometa Gallery in Rome, also participating in the inauguration exhibition of its New York branch. In 1939 he participated in the exhibitions of the anti-fascist group Corrente, in Milan and at the Universal Exhibition in New York. In the post-war period, there was a conflict involving most Italian artists between post-cubist figuration, in compliance with the directives of the Communist Party, and abstraction. In his works, the cubist decomposition leads to shifting attention from the subject to the specific elements of painting, such as the chromatic material. The exhibition activity continues with particular success both in Italy and in the United States. In 1956 the Venice Biennale dedicated a solo exhibition to him. He died in 1975. The following year the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome dedicated a major retrospective to him, the first act of a historical reinterpretation of his figure which is still ongoing (the general catalog was only released in 2009), so necessary to give it the dimension it deserves.
