The Elisabeth Keller Archives ©, an organization of the “Cultural Association for the study, protection and enhancement of the Archives and Works of Mosè Bianchi-Pompeo Mariani-Elizabetta Keller”, is the brainchild of Giovanni Pitscheider (heir and blood descendant of Mosè Bianchi, Pompeo Mariani and the painter Elizabetta Keller). It was created to restore dignity and historical accuracy to the cultural legacy of the painter from Monza. The Statute of the Association, established as a non-profit legal entity on 23 May 2015 (refer to Annex 1), establishes the Governing Council which, in addition to Giovanni Pitscheider and Paolo Lunardi Versienti, (art historian at the University of Milan), also enjoys the fundamental contributions of Aurora Scotti – a Full Professor at the Polytechnic of Milan, and a renowned expert in the works of Pellizza Volpedo and an important writer on the history of Italian art and architecture; and Rodolfo Profumo – an art historian, expert in Italian painting of the late 19th-early 20th centuries and author of several specialised studies in the field.
The Cultural Association for the study, protection and enhancement of the Archives and Works of Mosè Bianchi, Pompeo Mariani and Elizabeth Keller was founded on the initiative of Giovanni Pitscheider as a due legitimate act to make known the direct family hereditary continuity linking Mosè Bianchi (1840-1904) and Pompeo Mariani (1857-1927) to his great grandson and nephew Giovanni Battista Pitscheider (1883 -1964), husband of Elisabetta Keller (1891-1969), father of Umberto Pitscheider (1918 – 2013), my father in turn.
GOVERNING COUNCIL AND SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE CV
Giovanni Pitscheider , Director | Cinematographer (President)
Educated at the Monza Institute of Art in Graphic and Visual communication Giovanni Pitscheider is an accomplished and experienced film director and cinematographer. Born into a family of Italian and Swiss artists which traces back to the late nineteenth century. His deeply-embedded aesthetic sense, so clearly expressed in his filmography, is born out of this unique upbringing. He signed documentaries films for international broadcasters. Great-grandnephew of Pompeo Mariani and nephew of Elisabetta Keller.
Paolo Lunardi Versienti, Art Historian (Vice president)
Collaborator at the University of studies of Milan. Author of several academic articles, he completed a critical edition of the correspondence of Pompeo Mariani which proposes unpublished testimonies of the national artistic culture, at the turn between the nineteenth and twentieth century.
Aurora Scotti, Art Historian (Councilor)
Associate Professor of History of Architecture at the Polytechnic of Turin from 1988 to 1995. Full Professor of History of Architecture at the Polytechnic of Milan since 1996. She has always studied History of architecture and design in the period between the sixteenth and eighteenth century, with particular attention to the relationship between architecture and institutions. She has published several essays, and been a member of national and international scientific committees. In other areas she has organised exhibitions at national and international level including the exhibition at the Museo del Novecento in Milan dedicated to the Fourth Estate by Pellizza da Volpedo, the Radical Light previous exhibitions at the National Gallery in London, which were then moved to the Kunsthaus in Zurich and the exhibition on divisionism / Neoimpressionism- Arcadia and Anarchy, with the Guggenheim in New York. She is President of the Pellizza da Volpedo Association and scientific director of the Pellizza da Volpedo Museums which include the artist’s studio, an educational museum and paths in the area.
Rodolfo Profumo, Art Historian (Secretary)
A student of Corrado Maltese, he teaches History of Art at the state art secondary school of Monza, already an established state art institution back in 1985. He collaborated with Prof. Anty Pansera as a Teaching Assistant, for the courses in Theory and History of Design at the Polytechnic of Milan from the academic year 2001-2002, to 2005-06. He has been particularly interested in the relationship between art and science and the history of design. In recent years he has studied the artistic phenomena in the area of Brianza publishing essays, with particular reference to nineteenth and twentieth century art.