(Rome 1933–1970 New York)
Colosseo rosso, 1960, signed, dated D. Gnoli 60, tempera and sand on canvas, 80 x 99 cm, framed, (MCC)

Provenance:
Arthur Jeffries Gallery, London
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Melville, London
Galleria Studio Due Ci, Rome, there acquired in 1987 by the present owner
Private Collection, Italy

Exhibition:
London, Domenico Gnoli, Arthur Jeffries Gallery, 1960, exh. cat. no. 3 with ill. (label on the reverse)
Hannover, Domenico Gnoli, Kestner Gesellschaft, 1968, exh. cat. no. 3, (fragment of label on the reverse)
Darmstadt, Kunsthalle der Stadt, 1973, exh. cat. no. 64 (without ill.)
Rotterdam Gnoli, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, exh. cat. no. 5 – 64 (label on the reverse)
Paris, Domenico Gnoli, CNAC-Centre National d’Art Contemporain, November 1973 - January 1974, p. 19 with ill., (label on the reverse)
Bruxelles, Palais des Beaux Arts, March 1974 Saint Paul de Vence, Domenico Gnoli, Fondation Maeght, 1987, exh. cat., p. 41, plate 13 with ill., (label on the reverse)
Rome, Domenico Gnoli 1933 – 1970, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, 1987, exh. cat. no. 13 with ill., (label on the reverse)
Tokyo, Pop Italiana 60’s: L’Italia negli anni della Pop Art, Vente Museum, 1992 – 1993, exh. cat. p. 67 with ill.

Literature:
Luigi Carluccio, Domenico Gnoli, F. lli Fabbri (ed.), Milan, 1974, p. 28 with ill.
Luigi Carluccio, Domenico Gnoli, Overlook Press, Woodstock, N. Y., 1975
Claude Spaak, Gnoli, in FMR, 1983, p. 195
Domenico Gnoli ultimas obras 1963 – 1969, exh. cat. Madrid, Fundacion Caja de Pensiones, 1990, p. 36 with ill.
Walter Guadagnini, in Domenico Gnoli, Lettere e scritti, Carte d’Artisti 54, ediz. Abscondita 2004, p. 33 Domenico Gnoli a Mallorca, 1963 – 1970, Mallorca 2006, exh. cat. p. 46 with ill.
Marco Tonelli, Pino Pascali. Il libero gioco della scultura, Johan & Levi (ed.), 2010, p. 24 with ill.

His profound knowledge of the classical art field, his education based on the lessons delivered by Carlo Alberto Petrucci and, finally, the experience he developed in the area of theatre design, lead Gnoli in the period between 1955 and 1962 to the development of an original pictorial language, which he defines thus: - In a period such as the present one, characterised as it is by iconoclastic antipainting, which would like to burn all bridges with the past, I am inclined to see my work as being part of the ‘non-eloquent’ tradition that emerged in Italy in the 15th century and, through the metaphysical school, continues until today. Reality presents itself unperturbed and intact. Isolated from their usual context, everyday objects appear to us as the most uncanny witnesses of our solitude deprived of any ideologies and certitudes -‘

...I was first attracted to the group of metaphysical painters. Under the influence of Morandi and Carrà, I depicted my stylised interpretation of a boat, a baptistery, a coliseum with red or yellow colours….’
(Domenico Gnoli to Claude Spaak in ‘Gnoli’, Franco Maria Ricci edit., 1983, p. 195)