Francesco Clemente is one of a group of Italian artists who returned to a figurative style of painting in the 1970s. Clemente draws from a multitude of sources, from Roman and Indian civilizations to astrology. Clemente's paintings and prints are highly personal and subjective; he often creates his images from memory.

Clemente's work was the subject of a retrospective exhibition, Clemente, mounted by the Guggenheim Museum, New York (1999-2000), which traveled to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain (2000).