Biography

Marilisa Pizzorno was born in Brescia to a Sardinian father, an engineer, and a Milanese mother, a portrait painter. The family moved first to Turin and then to Milan. As an adolescent, she began modelling, drawing and painting while continuing her study of foreign languages with long stays in Switzerland and England. In 1967, after his marriage, he settled in Mestre (Venice). In 1970 he inaugurated his first solo exhibition in Venice (then only drawings) presented by the poet Diego Valeri. This one-man show was followed over the years by numerous one-man and group exhibitions in Italy and abroad (Austria, Germany, the United States) that received considerable critical and public acclaim.

Essentially self-taught in drawing, painting and sculpture, he attended summer courses in chalcographic engraving at the Art Institute in Urbino, Italy, in 1971 and 1972 (with Renato Bruscaglia) and at the Kokoschka Art Academy in Salzburg, Austria, in 1976 and 1977 (with Otto Eglau and Friederich Meckseper). In 1972 he moved again, to Monza (Milan).

Numerous trips abroad stimulated and enriched his creativity during these years (Egypt, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Tunisia, Germany, France, Japan, Yugoslavia, Romania). In 1980 she had a new studio in Milan, a city where she also moved to live in 1988, after the loss of her husband. In 1986 her production was mentioned in the Catalogo di Pittura Contemporanea Bolaffi Arte by critic Giorgio Seveso. In 1995-1996 she worked in New London, CT, USA, invited as artist-in-residence by the Griffis Foundation. In 2005 she moved house and studio to Sacrofano (Rome) and in 2017 permanently to Rome city.

Among others, Christofer Aigner, Elvira Cassa Salvi, Rossana Bossaglia, Mauro Corradini, Mario De Micheli, Floriano De Santi, Enzo Di Martino, Michael Fischer, Fausto Lorenzi, Danilo Maestosi, Carla Mazzoni, Marco Meneguzzo, Ida Mitrano, Maria Nadotti, Erfan Rashid, Paolo Rizzi, Roberto Sanesi, Giorgio Seveso, Robertomaria Siena, Gabriele Simongini, Franco Solmi, Luciano Spiazzi, Emilio Tadini have written about her work.