Franca Ghitti was born in Erbanno, Val Camonica (Brescia). She studied at the Academy of Brera in Milan, the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris and attended Oskar Kokoschka’s engraving course in Salzburg.

In 1963 she helped to found the Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici and began studying cartographic engravings in the Val Camonica (Naquane and Bedoline), creating her first Mappe on wooden tablets using metal meshes and nails.

Between 1966 and 1967 she produced Racconti della Valle, a cycle of frescos tracing “maps” of fields, boundaries and sheepfold, created for the Palazzo del Comune di Breno (Val Camonica). From 1969 to 1971 she lived and worked in Kenya where, on behalf of the Foreign Ministry (Scientific and Technical Cultural Cooperation), she made the large glass windows of the Italian Church in Nairobi.

She had exhibitions in important venues in Mantua, Turin, Milan, Zürich and Heidelberg, culminating in a large survey exhibition in 1988 at Palazzo Braschi in Rome.

Franca Ghitti has mounted exhibitions on the structure of wood in Milan, Regensburg, Munich and at the University of Pavia (where the Wald and the sundial were laid out as a large Mappe); in La Città e la sua impronta in 1994 at New York University; in Memoria del Ferro in Brescia and Vienna; and, beginning in 1993, in Omaggio a Brancusi in Vienna, Oradea, Cluj, Debretin, Budapest, Munich and New York, with previously unseen installations at each venue. In 1997 she produced important public works, such as Il segno dell’Acqua, a large iron waterfall in Lake Iseo (Brescia); l’Archivio dei Materiali, an environmental work in glass blocks framed in concrete, stone, iron and wood for the new residential neighbourhood of San Polo in Brescia; and Il mappale cubico fo the head quarters of Costruttori di Brescia. This led to salvaging scraps of iron and revival of her interest in Mappe.

In the Spring of 2000 she exhibited “The Other Alphabets” at the O.K. Harris Gallery in New York, followed by Cancelli d’Europa in September in Munich (Pasinger Fabrik) and in November in Bilbao (Fundación Bilbao Bizkaia Kutxa).

In 2001 she exhibited an installation in iron and wood at the Sculpture Park in Bendorf, Vienna. In that same year she made a large iron sculpture for the Rocca di San Giorgio in Orzinuovi (Brescia), where she also held the exhibition “Cancelli d’Europa”, which consisted of seven large iron installations.

In 2002 the exhibition “Cancelli d’Europa” was held at the Young Arts Galleryof Vienna in collaboration with the Association of Viennese Architects. At Parco Torri Gemelle degli Spalti San Marco in Brescia she unveiled a large Meridiana made of iron.

In 2003, for Pitti Immagine Uomo at Fortezza da Basso in Florence, she produced Albero-vela and Spirale, a large iron installation.

In May 2004 Ghitti has created a new installation entitled Gates of Europe for the new building of the Confartigianato in Brescia.

In 2005 a large selection of her sculptures is exhibited at the Museo Diocesano in Milan.

In 2006 Ghitti’s research is devoted to an original reworking in the theme of Gates of Europe through the creation of new installations presented in three universities: Università Cattolica, Brescia;Faculty of Architecture, Politecnico, Milano in Italy and University of Houston, College of Architecture in the USA. All presentations have been introduced by lectures for students and teachers in the same universities.

In 2007 F. Ghitti’s book Iron Memory, Mazzotta Publisher, is presented with installations in every site (Palazzo La Loggia, Brescia in May and Palazzo della Triennale, Milano in June).