The exhibition, which is being organised jointly with the Afro Archive in Rome, will concentrate on Afro's output during his years in America. His works were executed during a period which he considered to be very prolific, when he - along with other young Italian artists, such as Cagli, Guttuso, Morlotti and Pizzicato - began to collaborate with the Catherine Viviano Gallery in New York. The exhibition will present a selection of about 30 works, lent by American collections or others which have been sold recently and have left the Afro Archive. Since most of the works on display have never been exhibited in Italy, this exhibition will provide a view of the artist's rapport with America at a time that reinforced his attraction to abstract art and helped to make the artist famous overseas, then and now. The catalogue contains an introduction by the curator and other articles about the activities of the Viviano Gallery, Afro's relationships with other American artists and, more generally, the relationship of Italian artists with America. A series of detailed tables (referring also to works not in the exhibition but that are relevant to the same period) contain much unpublished material. Text in English and Italian. AUTHOR: Afro Libio Basaldella was born in Udine in 1912. At just sixteen years of age, he showed his work along with that of his brothers Dino and Mirko, in the first and only Exhibition of the Friulian Avant-Garde. In 1930, thanks to a scholarship from the Marangoni Arts Foundation in Udine, Afro had the opportunity to go to Rome with his brother Dino and acquaint himself with the capital's art world. In 1931 he began participating in different exhibitions of the Arts Union and in 1933 at the Galleria del Milione in Milan, along with Friulian artists Bosisio, Pittino e Taiuti. Afro subsequently moved to Rome. After participating in the activities of the School of Rome, creating several mural paintings and engaging in the temporary resurgence of Neo-Cubism, Afro travelled to New York in 1950 and began a twenty-year collaboration with the Catherine Viviano Gallery. ILLUSTRATIONS: 80 colour
