A journey through the intricate and elaborate production of Elisa Montessori, which began in Rome in the immediate postwar period and has grown over time.
At the Casino dei Principi, a broad retrospective bears witness to the entire arc of work by the artist, born in Genoa in 1931. Over a hundred works in oils, drawings and books; several important loans from public and private collections; site-specific interventions by the artist. Closer to an autobiography, as Montessori herself defines it, than to a chronological exhibition method, the route that accompanies visitors through the rooms is conceived by the artist as a kind of self-portrait, a total work unfolding through reconstructions, installations and the crucial moments of her life and research, bringing together and comparing works differing in technique, date and dimensions but united by subtle linguistic, artistic, scientific and poetic connections.
The exhibition narrative is organised into thematic sections along an itinerary of conceptual and installation stations in dialogue with the spaces of Villa Torlonia and its garden. Visitors are presented with the main lines of research that have always accompanied Montessori's artistic production: the theme of metamorphosis between science and myth; the creations and techniques experimented with in her studio; the construction of the book as a work of art, writing and literature; the encounter and visual and philosophical comparison with the East; and the profound and intense relationship with the complexity of nature, from the observation of its details to the entirely personal reworking of the concept of landscape.
What is offered, therefore, is a journey through the intricate and elaborate production of Montessori. o, language and technique. Her love of literature, study of philosophy, interest in Eastern culture and scientific explorations, combined with a versatile technical experimentation (from ceramics to mosaic, from classic oil on canvas to the use of every kind of paper and pigment), make Elisa Montessori a complex and complete witness of her time.
Also presented as a supplement are: the documentary film Montessori (2004), shot by Francesco Vaccaro, which documents the artist's working method; the documentary video Elisa Montessori (2020), presented by Monitor, with an interview curated by Davide Ferri and directed by Mario Poeta; and the video interview Gli amici di Titina Maselli. Elisa Montessori (2025), curated by Federica Pirani and Claudio Crescentini, made on the occasion of the major retrospective on Titina Maselli held in Rome last year.
Her love of literature, study of philosophy, interest in Eastern culture and scientific explorations, combined with a versatile technical experimentation ranging from ceramics to mosaic, from classic oil on canvas to the use of every kind of paper and pigment, make Elisa Montessori a complex and complete witness of her time. A time that spans more than seventy years of career and an immense and eclectic body of work.
Accompanying the curatorial project is a Public Program aimed at different types of audiences, with workshop activities on some of the techniques used by the artist – monotype printing, the art of mosaic, calligraphy and other forms of expression from Eastern culture – as well as expressive animation workshops inspired by Montessori's works.
The programme is completed by a series of lectures aimed at exploring central points of her artistic research, including the link with Eastern philosophy and the suggestions derived from quantum physics.