Afro Basaldella

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Afro Basaldella , also known by the stage name Afro , (born March 4, 1912 in Udine , † July 24, 1976 in Zurich ) was an Italian painter .

Life

Afro Basaldella studied in Florence and Venice and graduated from the Venice Art School in 1931. Already in October 1928 he exhibited his works of art together with his two brothers Dino, Mirko and Alessandro Filipponi at the I ° Mostra della Scuola friulana d'avanguardia ( I ° exhibition of the Friulian avant-garde school ); The following year at the XX ° Esposizione dell'Opera Bevilacqua La Masa (Venice). In the same year (1929) he received a scholarship which enabled him to go to Rome , where he met Scipione , Mario Mafai and Corrado Cagli .

In 1932 he spent a time in Milan , where he and his brother Mirko frequented Arturo Martini's studio. The following year he exhibited at the Galeria del Milione in Milan. In 1937 he opened his first own exhibition in the Galleria della Cometa in Rome . One of the paintings in the exhibition, entitled “L'Autoritratto”, was auctioned by the National Gallery of Modern Art (Galleria Nazionale di Arte Moderna). In 1938 he took part in the Venice Biennale with the works of art “Pastori” and “Oreste” . In 1941 he had a joint exhibition with Pippo Rizzo , Domenico Purificato , Alfio Castelli , Arturo Peyrot and his brother Mirko in the Galleria di Roma. In 1942 he took part in the Venice Biennale with six works . In the years from 1944 to 1945 his works were marked by a distinctive Cubist influence, which mostly produced still lifes and portraits; its abstract phase was defined between 1948 and 1949.

In 1950 he began to work with the Italian-American Catherine Viviano Gallery in New York , which from then until 1968 regularly exhibited its works of art almost every two years.

He was a member of the Italian artist group Gruppo degli Otto from 1952.

Twelve works were exhibited in New York in 1955, including “Libro giallo” and “Ragazzo col tacchino”, which were later auctioned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York . In the same year he took part in documenta 1 in Kassel .

Together with other artists, including Alberto Burri , Giuseppe Capogrossi , Luciano Minguzzi and Mirko, selected by Andrew Carnduff Richie, he took part in the 1956 exhibition “The New Decade. 22 European painters and sculptors ”. The exhibition was shown in New York , Minneapolis , Los Angeles and San Francisco .

In the same year he took part in the XXVII ° Venice Biennale with his own exhibition space , where he received the prize for the best Italian painter. 1958 exhibitions in the USA in Oakland , San Francisco and Santa Barbara . He paints the mural “Giardino della Speranza” for the UNESCO building in Paris . He took part again in the second Documenta in 1959. In 1960 he won the Guggenheim Prize in New York for his work “L'isola del Giglio”.

In 1964 he took part again in a documenta , documenta III in Kassel .

In 1966 he taught at the Fine Arts Institute in Sarasota / Florida together with Syd Solomon, Conrad Marca-Relli , Larry Rivers and James Brook. Basatella held a painting course at the Accademia di Belle Arti ( Academy of Fine Arts ) in Florence in 1967 , which he continued until 1973.

In 1971 he received the “Premio nazionale di pittura Presidente della Repubblica” in Rome .

Own exhibitions

  • 1937 in the Galleria della Cometa in Rome
  • 1939 in the Galleria della Zecca Turin in the Galleria Genova and in Genoa
  • 1947 in the Galleria dello Scorpione in Trieste and the Galleria del Camino in Milan .
  • 1955 in the Viviano Gallery in New York .
  • 1961 in the Galerie de France in Paris and in the Galleria Bluund in Milan .
  • 1969–1970 A large exhibition with around two hundred works in Darmstadt , Berlin and Ferrara .

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Basaldella, Afro
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Afro; Basaldella, Afro Libio
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian painter
DATE OF BIRTH March 4, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Udine
DATE OF DEATH July 24, 1976
Place of death Zurich