The Tamesis
Is this the back of a woman’s dress? As I stood in front of Domenico Gnoli’s cherry-red painting at the Lévy Gorvy Dayan gallery, I felt curious.
It wasn’t until I was a few feet away from the canvas (more than five feet square) that I realized the work depicted a tie knot that had been hyper-cut and punched until it was almost abstract. Upon closer inspection, I was drawn to the rhythmic and perfectly rendered lines of the ribbed fabric. In the hands of the late Italian artist, this mundane object is reminiscent of a sculpture, similar to Park’s paintings, in which repeated pencil lines are carved into a still-wet surface, creating a three-dimensional texture.
Such detailed optical illusion effects are just one of Gnoli’s myriad tricks, as evidenced by the survey of Lévy Gorvy Dayan, the largest exhibition of Gnoli’s work in the United States since 1969. During his short life (Gnoli died of cancer in 1970 at the age of 36), the Rome-born artist achieved great success as an illustrator of children’s books and magazines, including sports illustrated and Life; Costume and set designer; Ultimately a painter with a unique, timeless style that is reminiscent in various ways of Surrealism, Pop Art and Arte Povera. In The Adventures of Domenico Noli, Levi Galve Dayan presents 17 exemplary paintings, as well as rare drawings, etchings, notebooks, letters and ephemera, drawn from the heyday of Gnoli’s career between 1965 and 1969. Given that there are only 160 to 170 mature paintings by Gnoli in existence, most of which are in private collections, it was no easy task to include these works in a collection. together.
“Gnoli’s collectors are often very reluctant to part with his works, even on loan,” said Amalia Dayan, who runs the gallery with Dominique Lévy and Brett Gorvy. Fashion. Many of his pieces either remain in the hands of their original owners or have been passed down through their families. “There is a cult of Gnoli,” Dayan continued. “Once you delve deeper and understand his complex universe, you become fascinated.” Her own obsession took shape more than a decade ago, when she staged Gnoli exhibitions in 2012 and 2018 with her former gallery, Luxembourg & Dayan (now Luxembourg + Co.).
The new exhibition at Lévy Gorvy Dayan requires close collaboration with the institutions of Gnoli’s heritage, including the Domenico Gnoli Archives in Mallorca (led by the artist’s widow Yannick Vu and her current husband Ben Jakober, a colleague of the artist and Gnoli’s close friend) and the Archivio Domenico Gnoli in Rome (led by the artist’s sisters Mimì Gnoli and Livia Polidoro-Gnoli).
