Domenico Gnoli (Roma, 1933 – New York, 1970) grew up immersed in an artistic and cultural environment, he and his mother attended drawing and engraving classes, led by Carlo Alberto Petrucci, director of the Calcografia Nazionale, and later president of the Accademia di San Luca.

In 1950, at just 17 years old, he exhibited a series of drawings titled Mes Chevaliers at La Cassapanca Gallery in Rome. The following year, he participated in a group exhibition on Italian graphic design in Brussels, organized by Petrucci.

Gnoli’s talent was quickly recognized, and his stage designs garnered acclaim across Europe. In 1954, he showcased his work in the group exhibition Contemporary Italian Prints in Philadelphia. However, just two years later, he chose to abandon a promising career as a set designer—along with the opportunities offered by the theater world—to focus on painting and what he considered to be “essential.”

Living between London, New York, Paris, and Rome, Gnoli pursued his path as a self-taught painter, showing little interest in the informal approach of contemporary American painting. Instead, he drew inspiration from the Italian masters of Metaphysical art, including Giorgio Morandi and Carlo Carrà. In 1956, he held his first solo exhibition in the United States at the Sagittarius Gallery in New York, followed by participation in group shows in New York and San Francisco.

In parallel with his painting, he wrote short stories—often accompanied by his own illustrations—and worked for various magazines and newspapers.

In 1963, during an extended stay in Majorca, he experienced a significant artistic shift. Gnoli began to question the static perspectives traditionally adopted by Western art in the depiction of landscapes, still lives, and portraits. He sought a way to engage with objects that would both imbue them with fresh meaning and present them from a new point of view.

In September of that year, he completed Dame de dos (also known as Buste robe grise), a painting that marked a turning point in his career. Fascinated by a fabric worn by the women of Majorca, instead of gluing it directly onto the canvas, he meticulously reproduced its pattern and texture. This work marked the beginning of the large-scale paintings that would become his signature: detailed close-ups of ordinary objects, from clothing to furnishings found in bourgeois interiors.

These works debuted in 1964 in a solo exhibition at the Galerie André Schoeller in Paris. The following year, he participated in the group show De Metaphisica, organized by Galerie Jan Krugier in Geneva, alongside works by De Chirico, De Pisis, Morandi, and Carrà.

In 1965, Gnoli returned permanently to Rome, where he mingled with figures such as Giosetta Fioroni, Mario Schifano, Fabrizio Clerici, Balthus, Alberto Moravia, and Dacia Maraini.

In 1968, after exhibiting at the Grands et Jeunes d’Aujourd’hui show in Paris, he traveled through several Eastern European countries. At the end of 1969, he opened a major solo exhibition at the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York, featuring forty paintings and five bronze sculptures. Shortly afterward, another solo show followed at the Schmela Galerie in Düsseldorf.

He died in April 1970, at the young age of thirty-six.