Afro Basaldella (1912–1976) - Senza titolo

Afro Basaldella (1912–1976)

Title: untitled

Dating: n.d.

Technique: aquaforte / original etching

Support: handmade-cut paper

Dimensions:
sheet 50 × 65 cm approximately
plate 15 × 25 cm approximately

Provenance: private collection, Rome

Notes:
work signed with pencil at the recto, lower right
work numbered at the recto, lower left “16/40”
this is an example from a run of only 40 copies
embossed stamp on the recto
work housed in its contemporaneous wooden frame with no passepartout
stamp “arscritica modernaecontemporanea - Rome” on the frame lining

Conditions:
Excellent overall conservation state
frame in good condition (no particular value attributed to it)

Afro Basaldella, known simply as Afro, was one of Italy’s most important 20th-century artists and a central figure of European Informalism. Born in Udine in 1912 and died in Zurich in 1976, he participated repeatedly in the Venice Biennale and the Documenta in Kassel. His artistic research began in figurative form and later progressed to an international-scale abstract painting, influenced by American Abstract Expressionism and postwar European culture. His works are today in the collections of major international museums.

The proposed work fully represents the abstract phase of Afro Basaldella’s graphic production, characterized by a rapid, lyrical, and gestural symbolic language. The composition is built through a dynamic balance of black strokes, overlaps, and essential signs that evoke suspended and fragmented forms. The wide white margin and the refined essentiality of the image enhance the relationship between space, sign, and matter, elements distinctive of the artist’s poetics. This signed and numbered exemplar constitutes a significant testimony to postwar Italian graphic art.