Orfeo Tamburi was born in 1910 in Jesi, in the province of Ancona. After attending a technical school he decided to move to Rome, and in 1927 he enrolled in a Liceo artistico (art school). A few years later he won a scholarship that allowed him to attend the Accademia di Belle Arti.

He had his first group exhibitions in 1932. In 1936 he stayed briefly in Paris where he became fascinated by the works of Paul Cézanne. He returned to Italy and participated in several editions of the Rome Quadriennale and the Venice Biennale. In the 1940s he was commissioned to decorate the atrium of the Teatro EUR and he participated, together with Renato Guttuso, Virgilio Guzzi, Luigi Montanarini, Alberto Ziveri and Pericle Fazzini, in an exhibition dedicated to new realism set up at the Galleria di Roma.

From 1944 onward the artist dedicated himself to illustration, reproducing literary works by ancient and contemporary poets and writers through the technique of etching, lithography and drawing. Most exemplary are the collection of fifty drawings for Piccola Roma, with a poem by Ungaretti, and the illustrations of Stendhal’s Promenades dans Rome.

In 1947 the artist settled permanently in Paris. Between 1955 and 1956 he traveled to the United States and exhibited at major museums.

Awards that honored his career include the Medaglia d’Oro di Prima Classe al Merito della Cultura e dell’Arte awarded to him by the President of the Republic in 1971 and the Premio Internazionale “Città Eterna” received in 1975.

He died in Paris in 1994.