Paul Neagu was emplyed by the railroad in the 1950s and worked as electrician, craftsman and cartographer. He attended evening courses for technical drawing and for admission to the university. From 1960 to 1965 he then studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bucharest.
At the end of the 1960s, he produced a large group of palpable objects, and focused on the tradition of rituals and performances.
After an exhibition in Hamburg's 'Bauzentrum' in 1968, he was invited by the Demarco Gallery in Edinburgh. At that time he designed the 'Palpable Art Manifesto' and developed the idea of the 'Anthropo-Cosmos' with the construction of the human body from geometric cells.
In 1970 he emigrated from Romania to London via France and Paris.
He has been teaching at the Royal College of Art since 1976. He was an influential teacher and his students included Anthony Gormley, Anish Kapoor, Tony Cragg, Langlands & Bell and Rachel Whiteread.
After he was deprived of Romanian citizenship in the 1970s, he is now one of the most important artists of Romanian origin.
In 2015, the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds dedicated a large-scale overview exhibition to his work.