Born in Cremona in 1932, she attended the Paolo Toschi Institute in Parma and later sporadically attended Pompeo Borra’s painting course at the Brera Academy. From the end of 1957, she lived in Paris, where she worked for several newspapers and obtained a painting studio at the Maison d’Italie within the Cité Universitaire, where she held her first solo exhibitions. In early 1960, she returned to Milan. Attentive to what was happening around her, she always followed an independent path, without identifying with groups and movements, which she only approached for short periods. Thanks to her friend Bepi Romagnoni, she encountered the Bergamini Gallery, which hosted her first solo exhibition in May 1962, followed by others in subsequent years.
Literature, poetry and, above all, unconventional travels completed her training over the years and enriched her poetics.
She received numerous awards, including the 1966 Ramazzotti Prize at the 11th National Painting Competition and, in 2009, the “Scultura nella città. Progetti per Milano” organised by the Museo della Permanente. She was invited to the IX Quadriennale d’Arte in Rome in 1965 and in 1986 she exhibited at the XLII International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia in the “Arte e Scienza Arte e alchimia” exhibition, curated by Arturo Schwarz. There are many exhibitions that document her tireless activity and her urge to express her rich inner world. Among the most recent, in addition to “Transiti e incontri” at the Diocesan Museum in Milan in 2014, and “Concerto per Sofonisba” at the Violin Museum in Cremona in 2016, we recall “Athanor” at the Gallerie d’Italia in Milan in 2022. In 2024, the “Il Catalogo ragionato dell’opera di Gabriella Benedini” was presented at the Museo del Novecento in Milan, edited by the scientific Committee of the Gabriella Benedini Association, made up of Paolo Bolpagni, Luigi Cavadini, and Mariateresa Chirico. The Catalogue was born thanks to the long and constant work conducted by the Archive since 2007. In autumn 2025, her latest solo exhibition, “L’inverno di Persefone. Mito e cultura del contemporaneo”, at the Castiglia di Saluzzo, promoted by the Garuzzo Foundation.
