Maria Cristina Crespo lives and works in Rome where she was born in 1958 and where she studied painting. At she end of Seventies she was attending the Institute of Cultural Anthropology at the University La Sapienza in Rome. It is the moment of the Golden Bough of Frazer; of the psychoanalytical reading of mythology; of the Ernesto Martino’s writings studying; of the research in Italians or others, primitive and not primitive popular traditions; of the numerous trips, especially to South America. She is a free-lance journalist since1983. In 1984 she got a graduation degree, cum laude, – at La Sapienza University of Rome– in History of Art Criticism with a thesis titled Relationship between Roman and Umbrian Painting in the Middle Age – with Prof. B. Toscano–. It is her Medieval moment, for her studies and for her artistic research. In 1990 at La Sapienza University she obtained, cum laude, a Master in History of Medieval and Modern Art –with M. Calvesi–. At the same time she attended A. Avessian painting course, at the Free School of Nude in the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. She has been involved in Museology by her participation in museum projects, Contemporary Art projects and by working with numerous important society such as: S.I.T.A.F. (Italian Society for the Frejus Tunnel), S.A.L.T., R.A.I Educational, Naples Underground, etc. In 1986 she began to exhibit in Italy, in Europe and in the United States. She had numerous personal exhibits as well as participations in collective shows. She contributed with articles or illustrations to several magazines: "Autopiù", "Musei e Gallerie d’Italia", "Plages", "Images Art & Life", "Cahiers d’Art", "Micromega". In the Italian artistic outline her works are unique due to their contents and forms originality and singularity. They can always mix the most antique and precious traditions and the manual techniques with Avantgarde researches. Her Art works are always balanced between painting, sculpture, theatre and installations. Sculptured paintings, shrines, retablos, altars, niches, Art in Box these are the different ways in which her art works are defined. These works are the results of a free and curious way to approach the Art world, the cultural world and the life itself. Thanks to this approach she could work with important artists or intellectuals –i.e. the sculptor Angelo Cavalieri, the arts critics Achille Bonito Liva – and to go inside unexplored and remote art fields, like the Italian Big Naïf world. For her artistic work she made numerous researches on folks arts. Some of them were also published, like the research on the Puerto Rican gardens in Manhattan – (see M.Cristina Crespo, Portare un pò d’acqua alla defunta Correa, in "Ex Voto per il millennio" by Nicola Micieli, Jaca Book, 2000) – or the series about the Brut Art for R.A.I. Educational. She is a consultant for R.A.I. Educational, –director Gianni Minoli–, for the production of "Magazzini Einstein", for programs like Art News and Chi ha paura di Monnalisa. Recently she participated at "Atelier ’05" organized by the Ortesiadi Foundation of Gibellina (Trapani). For the Naples Metro has created a work, "Milky Way" (Augusto Station, line 6, the project STATIONS OF ART, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva, 2006). He began exhibiting in numerous solo and group exhibitions since 1986, in Europe and America He has collaborated with writings or illustrations with numerous magazines such as museums and galleries in Italy, Autopiù, Plages (Paris) Images Art & Life (Modena), Cahiers d'Art, Micromega, Hat, Interpret (Campanotto Publisher). Since 2005 collaborates continuously with RAI EDUCATIONAL, as a consultant and author for the production Warehouses Einstein and Programs Who Fear of the Mona Lisa and Art News, aired every Saturday on RAI 3, intended and designed by Giovanni Minoli, Paola Orlandini and Luigi Ceccarelli. Between 2010 and 2012: documentary on Edward Hopper, 100 years of Futurism (directed by Carlo Ferreri) Francis Bacon ( "Ecce Bacon" directed by Agostino and Carlo Pozzi Ferreri)), "Being naive", directed by Massimo and Sarina " land of the Giants "(art and life at the time of the Pontine Marshes), half-hour version and an hour made with Paola Orlandini and presented to the Funds Film Festival in September 2012. The international art scene of his works form a unique originality and uniqueness, especially because of the particularly refined technique, which makes the indestructible works but apparently ephemeral immediacy. The video of the making of "the Marchesa Casati Night Garden" in the episode XXV, 2010, Art News, aired March 20 on RAI 3, an Raffaele Simongini service directed by Angela Landini, you can see on the website " http://www.artnews.rai.it "www.artnews.rai.it, Works, Marchesa Casati. He has created works for numerous art projects, as ATELIER 2005, at the invitation of. Ludovico Corrao, at the Foundation Orestiadi Visual Arts, XXIV edition, Gibellina (Trapani), curated by Achille Bonito Oliva. Installing ceramic "Garden of Remembrance" it was exhibited from July to September 2010 in the Castle Grottaglie (Taranto) in the exhibition "INTRAMOENIA Extrart", fifth edition (Castles of Brindisi, Taranto and Grottaglie) titled Mirages, curated by Giusy Caroppo and Achille Bonito Oliva. In 2011 Peccolo gallery of Livorno realizes the Artist's Book "Grand Tour in the Garden of Remembrance. A Herbarium for the Immortals ", a sort of diary drawn between gardens, plants and people of culture and art, presented by Achille Bonito Oliva in April 2012. The designs used in this publication, together with a dannunziana installation, specifically designed for WALKS of Grand Hotel Gardone Riviera, were exposed as part of the VIII festival OF MECHANICAL WONDER (various sites around Lake Garda) by Albano Morandi week. - October 2012, presented by the author and presenter of the transmission ART NEWS Paola Orlandini. "In 2015 come the second catalog of the works," Teatrini of the hybrid image "published by Allemandi, with writings by Achille Bonito Oliva, Christa Blenk, Carlo Marcello Conti, Paolo Moreno, Maria Paola Orlandini, and the artist's book" Garden the dancing muse ", Campanotto Publisher, made to coincide with the celebrations of 150 years of d'Annunzio and the 100 years of the Great War, on the occasion of the exhibition at the museum Casina of the Owls in Villa Torlonia, in Rome.Numerous experts wrote about her works: Carmine Benincasa, Berenice, Achille Bonito Liva, Bonizza Giordani Aragno, Lucio Cabutti, Angelo Capasso, Angelo Canevari, Giusy Caroppo, Mauro Carrera, Inga Conti, Carlo Marcello Conti, Miriam Cristaldi, Roberto Guitierrrez, Renzo Margonari, Marta Massaioli, Nicola Micieli, Paolo Moreno, Stefania Severi, Mario Verdone.
	BIBLIOGRAFIA ESSENZIALE: CARMINE BENINCASA "Novalis" in Cahiers d’Art n. 16, 1996; CARMINE BENINCASA "Il Teatro della Memoria", Catalogo della Mostra "Cameos" alla Fondazione Orensanz di New York, ed. Canal Stamperia, Cahiers d’Art, Venezia 1997 BERENICE "Edicole e Teatrini" in Paese Sera, 28 marzo 1988) ACHILLE BONITO OLIVA "CRESPO", Milano, Electa 1999; ACHILLE BONITO OLIVA "Il titolo sublime dell’arte e grottesco dell’opera" in "Gratis. A bordo dell’arte", Milano, Skira 2000 , pagg. 187-190 e tav. LIII; ACHILLE BONITO OLIVA "Tanagrina" in "Autocritico Automobile. Attraverso le avanguardie. Remake per le nuove generazioni", Cooper Castelvecchi, 2002 ACHILLE BONITO OLIVA "Universo in Scatola" in STILE arte, anno IX, n. 77, aprile 2004 ACHILLE BONITO OLIVA "Atelier 0’5", Orestiadi/artivisive XXIV edizione. Gibellina 2005, Catalogo; ACHILLE BONITO OLIVA "Teatrini dell’Ibrida Immagine", catalogo della personale alla Galleria Benucci di Roma, 2006-2007. BONIZZA GIORDANI ARAGNO "Da Furore d’Amor Mosso" catalogo della mostra alla Galleria IL PUNTO, Roma 1988; ANGELO CAPASSO "La Morte della Pizia" in "Cahiers d’Art", N. 8, 1995; ANGELO CAPASSO "Maria Cristina Crespo" True Stories in "FLASH ART", n . 205, 1997 ANGELO CAPASSO "Maria Cristina Crespo" in "SEGNO", maggio 2001; ANGELO CAPASSO "Sacro Quotidiano" in "MODUS VIVENDI", n. 9, 1998 ANGELO CAPASSO "A/a L’arte per l’Arte", Marta Massaioli editore, Roma, 2002, pagg. 199-200, tav. pag. 238) . ANGELO CANEVARI "Una reinvenzione del Mondo", Catalogo della personale ,L’Aquila, Centro Multimediale Quarto di Santa Giusta, 1991: MAURO CARRERA in "Sacralità del Profano, Laicità del Sacro", Catalogo a cura di Marzio dall’Acqua, Gualtieri (RE) , 2006 ; (e in "UROBURO. O dell’eterno ritorno" omaggio a Cocteau, catalogo della mostra all’Archivio di Stato di Parma, ott. 2005). INGA CONTI , dir. rivista "INTERPRETARE", copertine 2006, 2007, 2008 CARLO MARCELLO CONTI, "Vestire la poesia" in "ZETA NEWS". Rivista Internazionale di Poesia e Ricerche, anno XXVIII, n. 77 , 2006; e anno 2007 CARLO MARCELLO CONTI, "Senza Sipario" in "ZETA NEWS". Rivista Internazionale di Poesia e Ricerche, anno XXIX, n. 78, 2007. MARIA CRISTINA CRESPO "Diorami dall’inferno", catalogo della personale a Parigi . UNESCO 1994 "L’opera d’arte è un trofeo d’amore" in "Cahiers d’Art" MIRIAM CRISTALDI, "Strane bambole Mondo Crespo" , In La Repubblica, Genova (personale in SATURA), Genova, 9 ott. 2001. ROBERTA FRANCESCHETTI, "Maria Cristina Crespo. Dal Medioevo all’Art Pompier" in "ARTE", Giorgio Mondatori Numero dedicato alle donne artiste, agosto 1999 DESIREE KLAIN, "Le Creazioni di Crespo alla Galleria Benucci" in OFF NEWS, 20, 12. 06 RENZO MARGONARI, "Le Bambole della Regina", catalogo della mostra personale a Mantova, MAM,Museo d’Arte Moderna di Gazoldo degli Ippoliti, agosto 2003. RENZO MARGONARI, "Il cuore pulsante della vera arte povera", in "Cronaca di Mantova", 5. 4. 2002 MARTA MASSAIOLI, intervista e copertina in CRUDELIA, anno III, n. 18, giu. 2003 . NICOLA MICIELI, in "Ex Voto per il Millennio" Catalogo della Mostra – evento per il giubileo, Pisa, Certosa di Calci, ed. Jaka Book, 2000. PAOLO MORENO, "Maria Cristina Crespo" in "IMAGES ART & LIFE", collana "Maestri Contemporanei", suppl. al n. 61, Modena. PAOLO MORENO, "Legno, Stucco, Specchio" . rubrica "Saper Vedere" in "Archeo", nov. 2007. STEFANIA SEVERI, "D’Eliogabalo" in NEXT , estate 1997 "Todo Orbe in Pace Composito", Catalogo della mostra, giubileo degli artisti, copertina. Roma 1999. "Maria Cristina Crespo Artista della Meraviglia" in HAT, n. 46, autunno inverno 2007 "Venite Adoremus", catalogo della mostra dantesca, copertina, dic. 2007. MARIO VERDONE, "Da Furore d’Amor Mosso", catalogo della personale alla Galleria Il Punto, Roma 1988.