Gastone Novelli was a preeminent Italian artist of the 1950s and '60s, noted for his highly personal and poetic visual vocabulary. The major manifestation of his move beyond Informel aesthetics in 1960, as widely cited in the literature, was One of the Galleries of the Museum, a testamentary gift to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection by Giuseppina Araldi Guinetti. Here Novelli passed from his earlier vigorous gestures to more uniform color relationships, organized in square shapes. The lyricism of Cy Twombly’s calligraphy and Paul Klee’s childlike visions were vital influences for Novelli. He returned to the basics of the creative process, as if plucking elements from primordial chaos. This evokes automatic writing in Surrealism and explorations of the unconscious in Tachisme.