page_title: Elisa Montessori
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Elisa Montessori / Biography
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Scorcio di via Cappuccio a Milano con palazzi a lato
context_page_description: Elisa Montessori is an Italian painter.
context_section_description: Montessori was born in Genoa on 18 June 1931. She has been living and working in Trastevere in Rome since the mid-1950s, where she owns a studio.
  She has been interested in drawing since childhood. She studied classical subjects and graduated with a humanities degree in 1953 from La Sapienza University in Rome. After graduation, she was trained at Mirko Basaldella's studio where she met with the Gruppo Origine: Ettore Colla, Alberto Burri, and Giuseppe Capogrossi. With Basaldella she started experimenting with techniques such as egg tempera, ceramics, goldworking and engraving.
  In 1955 Montessori won a student grant to go to Paris, but decided to stay in Rome after her meeting with scientist Mario Tchou, who became her husband the same year. Montessori and Tchou moved to Milan and had two daughters. Their house in Milan on Via Cappuccio was designed by the architect Ettore Sottsass. Sotsass and Tchou were friends through their involvement on the Olivetti Elea project. Following the sudden death of Tchou in a car accident while on his way to Olivetti's headquarters in Ivrea in 1961, Montessori relocated to Rome. She would later remarry with Costantino Dardi, an architect, and had a third daughter.
caption: Via Cappuccio in Milan, where Montessori lived with her husband
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "4368", "Image ImageLength": "2912", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 5D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2018:08:17 19:10:44", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "288", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1134", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8619", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/640", "EXIF FNumber": "5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2018:07:27 14:03:28", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2018:07:27 14:03:28", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "75/8", "EXIF ApertureValue": "37/8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "2", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "35", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4368", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2912", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1008", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "873600/283", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1456000/471", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}