Initially, the Collezione Maramotti was presented in the corridors of the Max Mara factory to promote a fruitful, daily exchange between artistic creativity and industrial design, the factory was turned into a museum when the company’s production expanded and moved to a new headquarter. About 200 works from the 1000 work strong collection that dates from 1945 to the present, are on permanent view as an in-depth presentation of the important artistic tendencies, both Italian and international, of the last sixty years.

The Collezione Maramotti consists primarily of paintings but also features sculptures and installations. The works of the permanent collection range throughout forty three exhibition halls on the building’s two upper floors, arranged by various criteria. The collection holds a number of important European paintings that embody the abstract-expressionist, art informel climate of the late 1940s and early 1950s, a selection of the works of the “Roman School” of Pop Art, examples of Arte Povera fundamental works from the area of Italian neo-expressionism, known as the Transavanguardia, and a considerable group of works of the New Geometry of the United States, of the 1980s and 1990s, followed by the most recent experimentations in both the United States and Great Britain.

Most of the collection’s twenty-first century works have not been included in the permanent exhibition, and are presented in thematic shows in the ground floor spaces for temporary exhibitions and new projects commissioned to international artists. The Collezione Maramotti also exhibits and acquires the projects of artists who are awarded the two-yearly Max Mara Art Prize for Women, in collaboration with Whitechapel Gallery, for emerging women artists working in the United Kingdom. The collection is itself a “work in progress” and continues to explore the history of contemporary art as it unfolds.

The Collezione Maramotti is included in the Art Guide.