Afro Basaldella (March 4, 1912 in Udine - July 24, 1976 in Zurich) was an Italian painter. He was generally known by the single name Afro. March 4 is the 63rd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (64th in leap years). ... 1912 (MCMXII) was a leap year starting on Monday in the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday in the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Udine (Friulian Udin, Slovene Videm) is a city in the north-east of Italy, capital of the historical region of Friuli, in the middle of Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, between the Adriatic sea and the Alps (Alpi Carniche), less than 40 km far from the Slovenian border. ... July 24 is the 205th day (206th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 160 days remaining. ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... Location within Switzerland   Zürich[?] (German pronunciation IPA: ; usually spelled Zurich in English) is the largest city in Switzerland (population: 366,145 in 2004; population of urban area: 1,091,732) and capital of the canton of Zürich. ...

Afro first showed his work when he was sixteen, alongside the paintings of his artist brothers, Dino and Mirko. Two years later he won a scholarship to study art in Rome. Nickname: The Eternal City Motto: SPQR: Senatus PopulusQue Romanus Location of the city of Rome (yellow) within the Province of Rome (red) and region of Lazio (grey) Coordinates: Region Lazio Province Province of Rome Founded 21 April 753 BC Mayor Walter Veltroni Area    - City 1,285 km²  (496. ...

By 1933 he was exhibiting at the Galleria del Milione in Milan. In 1935 he participated in the Rome Quadriennale art exhibition, and he showed his work several times at the Venice Biennale. Afro followed the School of Rome, creating murals and taking part in the neo-Cubism movement. Milan (Italian: Milano; Milanese: Milán (listen)) is the main city of northern Italy, located in the plains of Lombardy. ... View of Pump Room, a work by the Hungarian artist Balázs Kicsiny at the Venice Biennale in 2005. ... Salle des illustres, ceiling painting, by Jean André Rixens. ...

Afro travelled to New York in 1950 and began a twenty-year collaboration with the Catherine Viviano Gallery. The different cultural climate and the diversity of the American art scene of the period impressed him, and his work grew to reflect new influences. Official language(s) English de facto Capital Albany Largest city New York City Area  Ranked 27th  - Total 54,520 sq mi (141,205 km²)  - Width 285 miles (455 km)  - Length 330 miles (530 km)  - % water 13. ...

Dore Ashton wrote about Afro in 1955 in Art Digest: “Like most Italians, Afro knows how to celebrate. The fanciful, ebullient side of his nature emerges in the high-keyed recent paintings - those in which he allowed himself the most freedom and spontaneity to date. In these, he celebrates the delights of senses”.^{[citation needed]}

Afro was shown in an exhibition called The New Decade: 22 European Painters and Sculptors, which toured the United States. His work was included at documenta 1 in Kassel, Germany. In the mid-1950s Afro's art became known worldwide, and he was celebrated in his home country with the honor of Best Italian Artist at the 1956 Venice Biennale. documenta 1 was the very first one in a row of renowned documenta exhibitions, showcasing modern and contemporary art in Kassel, Germany. ... Watershed of the river Weser Kassel (until 1926 officially Cassel) is a city situated along the Fulda River, one of the two sources of the Weser river, in northern Hessen in west-central Germany. ...

He spent the following year teaching at Mills College in Oakland, California. During his time as artist-in-residence at the school he made a mural for the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. It was titled The Garden of Hope and was included amongst works by Appel, Arp, Calder, Matta, Miró, Picasso and Tamayo at UNESCO. Emily Genauer wrote about his mural and its preparatory sketches in New York Herald Tribune: “But one sees from the earlier sketches how important drawing really is to him. With line taut and probing despite its seeming capriciousness, he establishes not only the patterns and contours of details of the composition, but also its over-all rhythmic pattern and cohesiveness.”^{[citation needed]} Mills College is a liberal arts womens college in Oakland, California. ... Oakland, founded in 1852, is the eighth-largest city in California[1] and the county seat of Alameda County. ... UNESCO logo UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) is a specialized agency of the United Nations established in 1945. ... Karel Appel (born April 25, 1921) is a painter, born in Amsterdam. ... Hans (Jean) Arp (September 16, 1886 – June 7, 1966) was a German-French sculptor, painter, and poet. ... Alexander Calder Alexander Calder (July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976), also known as Sandy Calder, was an American sculptor and artist most famous for inventing the mobile. ... Invasion of the Night, oil on canvas, 1940, SFMOMA. Roberto Sebastian Matta Echaurren (1911-2002), usually known as Matta, was one of Chiles best-known painters. ... Joan Miró photo taken by Carl Van Vechten, June, 1935 Joan Miró i Ferrà (April 20, 1893 – December 25, 1983) was a Catalan-Spanish painter, sculptor and ceramist born in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. ... Young Pablo Picasso Pablo Picasso (October 25, 1881 – April 8, 1973) was a Spanish painter and sculptor. ... Rufino Tamayo (August 26, 1899 – June 24, 1991) was a popular modern Mexican painter. ...

Afro continued to show his work internationally. He was invited to the second documenta, and showed at MIT and numerous European museums. He won first prize at the Carnegie Triennial in Pittsburgh and the Italian prize at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. The Guggenheim bought his 1957 painting Night Flight. In 1961, Guggenheim curator James Johnson Sweeney published a monograph on his work, where he wrote: “His color is sensuous, warm - never cold; fluid, not structural; free-edged, never sharply contoured. Light and color, shadow and shape achieve a suggested space effect through their ordering and flood it with the glories of his great predecessors: this festive sprit, this celebration of light and life - of life through light”.^{[citation needed]} from documenta 6 documenta (with a lower-case d) is an exhibition of modern and contemporary art which now takes place every 5 years in Kassel, Germany. ... The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. MIT is organized into five schools and one college, containing 32 academic departments and 53 interdisciplinary laboratories, centers and programs. ... The front of the Guggenheim Museum from 5th Avenue This article refers to the Guggenheim Museum in the upper east side of Manhattan (New York). ...

In the 1970s Afro began to suffer health problems, and he died in 1976. The following year, a monograph by Cesare Brandi was published. In 1978 the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome paid him homage in the form of a major retrospective. In 1992 a complete exhibition was held in Milan at Palazzo Reale. In November 1997 the Catalogue Raisonné of Afro was presented at the American Academy in Rome, and in 1998 at the Guggenheim Foundation in Venice. The front of Galleria Nazionale dArte Moderna, on May 1, 2006. ...

External links

• Short biography
• His entry at Artcyclopedia