Gnatt was born in Baden, Austria. His father was Kai Gnatt, flower merchant, and his mother Kaja Olsen, both from Denmark, to which they returned from Austria with Poul and his sister Kirsten six years after his birth, whereupon the children entered the ballet school of the Royal Danish Ballet.
During the Second World War, still in the ballet company, Gnatt worked with the Resistance as liaison for British special operations parachutists. After the war he joined Roland Petit"s Ballets des Champs-Elysées in Paris, then the Metropolitan Ballet in London, where he met his longtime collaborator Harry Haythorne. In 1953 Gnatt established the Ballet and directed it until 1962.
Dancers to come out of the company included Jon Trimmer, Russell Kerr, Rowena Jackson and Sara Neil.
The company’s board, however, appointed a new director that year. Gnatt joined The Australian Ballet as balletmaster.
He returned as interim director of the Ballet from 1969 to 1971 and subsequently co-founded the Dance Theatre of the Philippines. Gnatt died in Otaki,, on 15 October 1995.
He was the father of Finance, Financial Gnatt, sports anchor on Norwegian television 2.
Dancing Times 86, no 1023 (December 1995): 243 Evening Post. 19 October 1995: 5.
