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MATTHEW MARKS GALLERY
523 West 24th Street, New York, New York 10011  Tel: 212-243-0200  Fax: 212-243-0047


[[bold]] Agustin Fernandez [[/bold]] was born in Havana, Cuba in 1928. He studied art and philosophy, beginning doctoral work at the University of Havana in 1949 (the artist was a classmate of Fidel Castro's). That same year Fernandez traveled to New York where he took classes at the Art Students League with George Grosz and Yasuo Kuniyoshi. In 1951 Fernandez abandoned his academic studies to pursue art full time. In the 1950s he had shows in Cuba, Spain, the United States and Latin America, taking Honorable Mention at the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1956. In 1959 Fernandez received a scholarship from the newly installed Castro government that allowed him to travel in Europe. He never returned to Cuba, remaining in Paris and showing at the Galerie Furstenberg, then directed by André Breton's wife, Simon Collinet. In Paris Fernandez was close to other Latin American expatriates, particularly Matta and Wifredo Lam. In 1968 the artist moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico and then, in 1972, to New York. In New York he showed at the Robert Samuels Gallery along with Robert Mapplethorpe — a close friend — and Charles Henri Ford. Agustin Fernandez died in Manhattan in 2006.

[[bold]] Domenico Gnoli [[/bold]] was born in Rome in 1933. The son of a museum director and art historian, he studied painting with Giorgio Morandi. In the 1950s, influenced by the Neo Romantic, Eugene Berman, Gnoli produced many set designs. In Rome he associated with Leonor Fini and the Austrian fantastic realist Ernst Fuchs. Domenico Gnoli had a double career in art as a successful illustrator and painter. Living in New York in the late 1950s he did featured illustrations for Holiday and Horizon magazines and exhibited his graphic work at an early incarnation of the Bianchini Gallery. In the mid 1960s Gnoli settled in Majorca near his friend Mati Klarwein. The artist had a breakthrough show at the Sidney Janis Gallery in 1969 and the two paintings seen here are from that show. Four months after the Janis exhibition closed, Gnoli died in New York of cancer at the age of 37.