IN THE 1969 painting Curl, the last work Domenico Gnoli ever completed, a blown-up corkscrew of chestnut hair is isolated against a pink background of worsted fabric. Gnoli used acrylic paint mixed with sand and glue to achieve a granulated, textural effect. But, as with the majority of his paintings, the art is also about the unseen. Who is this girl with the curl?
"There is always an invisible presence in his paintings. It's never the object itself," says Daniella Luxembourg, co-founder of the gallery Luxembourg & Dayan. This month, an exhibition of rare Gnoli works, all dating to the last five years of his short, blazingly creative life, opens at the gallery's New York space. The Rome-born artist, who died of cancer in 1970 at the age of 36, was also the subject of an acclaimed show at the gallery in 2012, but the new exhibition features an entirely different trove of works, none of which have been seen in the U.S. since 1969.
Other pieces on view feature an empty chair, a red knotted tie, an austerely parted head of hair and sturdy stilettos. "Gnoli's paintings became more voluptuous and more baroque from 1965 onwards. It was as if he had more courage," Luxembourg says. "Nobody really understood his power, and now there is a huge aura around him." luxembourgdayan.com