Afro

Catherine Viviano Gallery, New York

Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 1969

Città di Castello, Palazzina Vitelli, Afro, 1967

New York, Catherine Viviano Gallery, Afro, 1968

Rovereto, M.A.R.T., Afro il periodo Americano, 2012, p. 308-09, no. 49, illustrated in colour

Cesare Brandi, Afro, Rome 1977, p. 88, illustrated

Mario Graziani, Ed., Catalogo Generale Ragionato dai Documenti dell'Archivio Afro, Rome 1997, p. 289, no. 652, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is greener in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. No restoration is apparent under ultra-violet light.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Deftly composed in a symphony of harmonious browns, beiges, and ochres, Silver Dollar Club 2 is a sumptuous exposition of Afro Basaldella’s ground-breaking mode of abstraction. Seeming at once planar and biomorphic, and finished in tones that appear both homogenous and juxtaposed, this is a truly captivating work of grand scale. In appreciating this work, we are reminded of the words of celebrated critic James Johnson Sweeney from his 1961 monograph on the artist: “His colour is sensuous, warm – never cold; fluid, not structural; free-edged, never sharply contoured. Light and colour, shadow and shape achieve a suggested space effect through their ordering and flood it with the glories of his great predecessors: this festive spirit, this celebration of light and life – of life through light” (James Johnson Sweeney, Afro, Rome 1961, n.p.).

This work has a sister painting – Silver Dollar Club – which is now in the permanent collection of the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan. The works are of exactly the same dimensions, and are executed in a similar manner of confident acuity, but were completed some eleven years apart. It has been suggested that their preclusive enigmatic title refers to an American jazz club, the type of which Afro’s generation were so fond. Indeed, it is possible to garner some echo of musical syncopation in the geometric articulations of the present work; the rhomboids of alternating colour seem almost rhythmic in this context, while the black forms of the left hand passage are redolent of the dynamics and notation of some jaunty musical script.

Any deference to American cultural precedent in the present work would be no surprise given the context of Afro’s wider life and work. He had first travelled to New York in 1950 to show at the Catherine Viviano gallery, and the trip had proven so successful that he continued to show there regularly for almost twenty years. Thus, while his friends and contemporaries Lucio Fontana and Alberto Burri were slashing and burning their canvases, Afro developed a style of abstraction that was distinct in the influence it took from Abstract Expressionists like Cy Twombly, Arshile Gorky (who died in 1948 and so was only known to Afro through his work) and particularly Willem de Kooning, whose friendship even extended to a stay in Afro’s studio in Rome. These connections with the New York scene helped the artist to escape the critical debate that raged between abstraction and realism in post-war Italy, and allowed his style to subsequently bloom on both sides of the Atlantic: he was awarded the painting prize for the best Italian artist at the 1956 Venice Biennale and two years later won the Guggenheim Prize in New York. The present work is testament to his inventive ability and enduring expressive power.