Monticelli was born as an illegitimate child in Marseille. His father, an Italian moneychanger, and his mother were not married. Young Adolphe lived in a sort of exile on a farm in Ganagobie, a small village in the south of France. It was here that he learned to admire the beauty of the Provence, an influence that was to mark his entire career as a special fondness for landscapes. Thus, Monticelli's style and the manner in which he experimented with the heavy application of his paints is traceable to 18th-century Provencal art.

When his parents married in 1835, almost ten years after he was born, Monticelli was finally legitimized and brought back to Marseille. His father decided to equip his son with an education, but all his endeavors failed. Finally, Monticelli found art. His parents were easily convinced of his artistic vocations, not because of any outstanding talent on his part, but rather because of the complete lack of interest in any other activity. Monticelli would spend long hours copying the works of old masters like Rembrandt, Veronese, and Giorgione. When he arrived in Paris for the first time in 1846, he was only 22. He soon enrolled in the studio of Paul Delaroche at the École des Beaux-Arts. Paris brimmed with cultural events during Monticelli's stay and he visited many exhibitions where he was exposed to the works of Delacroix, Couture, Dupré, Decamps, and Corot. In 1849, Monticelli returned to Marseille. He would work and live alternately in both cities for the rest of his life.

Although his oeuvre as a whole shows a lifelong investigation in the physical, expressive and spiritual properties of color, his work can be roughly divided into two periods. His romantic period, pre-1860, is characterized by capable drawing, careful handling, and the use of glazes in shades of yellow and red-brown over a bituminous base. A select number of compositions from this period feature a lively interplay of brighter and purer colors. By 1860, Monticelli had evolved his technique increasingly in this direction. His paintings in the second period are characterized by pearly and translucent effects and a sophisticated palette.

Monticelli’s technique and handling were surprisingly contemporary. Although many believed that he painted with a palette knife, he in fact preferred a short and hard brush. He wiped the colors with a cloth, spreading paint with his fingers, and used contrasting complementary colors, isolating elements of his composition with heavy outlines. He played with employing bright dots in 'major' colors against neutral backgrounds. The paintings from his final 15 years were even more direct. The paint appears to be applied on the canvas directly from the tube: a technique that the Fauves would further develop.

Monticelli's work is often linked to the Impressionists. But, rather than creating an impression of a scene before him, his depictions of the landscape came from within, enhanced by his own imagination and experiences from his childhood in the Provence. In the final years of his life, he did not even leave his studio to paint the outside world. These works feature an orchestration of layers of paint, an amassment that, at first glance, appears neutral but is in fact made up of dots of red, yellow, blue, orange, carmine, and green. When examining the work of Monticelli with a magnifying glass one would be amazed. Every element, every field of color, every line and shape, no matter how small, is standing on its own. No blending is unintentional: every element is essential. Conservators have noted that if one small detail is changed during the removal of the varnish, the balance is interrupted and the overall harmony is gone. Monticelli's manner of painting developed slowly from figurative romantic scenes to an abstract style. The paint no longer served only to depict a scene: the material itself became as important as the subject.

Monticelli had no desire to make himself visible as an artist or to make critics appreciate his paintings. During his lifetime, only a small group of admirers appreciated his work. The public mostly viewed him as a dandy-like bon vivant who could not really paint. This may have been the result of the fact that he never fit neatly into the various categories of painters by which art historians traditionally explain and define 19th-century French painting. Although his career spanned the periods of both Realism and Impressionism, Monticelli remained faithful to the principles of Romanticism: art should be a personal expression, and in that way, the artist should strive for uniqueness rather than assimilation within a movement. At the end of his life, he told a friend that it would take at least 30 years for critics and the public to appreciate his work.

His words turned out to be prophetic. For a short period after his death, Monticelli’s work grew tremendously popular, however, this was followed by a time where he fell from favor in art historical circles. Since the end of the 20th century, there has been a resurgence of interest in Monticelli. He greatly influenced both Cézanne and Van Gogh. Today, he is seen as the archetypal misunderstood genius who provided a steppingstone for modern painters such as the Fauves and even abstract art. Van Gogh wrote to the art critic Albert Aurier: ‘[Monticelli] is – as far as I know – the only painter who perceives the coloration of things with such intensity, with such a metallic, gem-like quality.

Monticelli passed away in Marseille in 1886. In 1909, he had a monument erected in his honor on the Palais Longchamp Marseille by the sculptor Auguste Carli. Works by Monticelli are currently held in the National Gallery of London, UK, the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Marseille, and the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.

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