One Work: Domenico Gnoli’s “Maquette”

Domenico Gnoli might have been one of the preeminent postwar artists had he not succumbed to cancer in 1970 at the age of thirty-six. Testament to this possibility is his rich retrospective on view at the Fondazione Prada. One exemplary painting is the triptych Maquette (1967). Though it measures less than two feet wide, it incorporates elements from his more celebrated outsize paintings—enigmatic, tightly cropped—in which clothing, shoes, and hair are scaled well beyond human propor