Afro

(1912 - 1976)

Galleria La Scaletta, Reggio Emilia, as per label on the reverse;

Private collection, Milan

Literature:

Afro. General catalogue raisonné. Drawings from 1932 to 1947, Vol. I, Dataars/La Scaletta Editions, 2006, illustrated on p.292

Artwork registered at the Archivio Afro, Rome, curated by Mario Graziani, with N.47D791, as per certificate issued on 29 January 2021

Blindarte kindly thanks the Afro Archive, Rome, curated by Mario Graziani, for confirming by email the authenticity of the artwork

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Afro Basaldella (Udine, 1912 - Zurich, 1976), one of the greatest exponents of informal art in Italy, came close to Neocubism in the first post-war period and the expressionist emphasis is charged and precedes a close analysis of the Picassian language. Between 1946 and 1947 he participated in the New Secession and then the New Front of the Arts approaching, with works of subtle drafting, a problem of abstract articulation of the chromatic surface. His painting presents forms that are increasingly articulated in a geometric plan, tending to recover the values of tonal transparencies and light already experienced in his youth, of which this delicious mixed technique of 1947 with warm colors is a perfect example.

«Colours of emotion are truly those that can be enjoyed in Afro’s works, colours that evoke the festive celebration of light and life», as James Johnson Sweeney, then director of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, wrote in 1961.