Afro

the artist
Private Collection, Tokyo
Kokaido Art Gallery, Tokyo
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1983

Cesare Brandi, Afro, Rome 1977, no. 52, illustrated in colour, and on the cover

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate. Condition: This work is in very good condition. There are very thin and stable drying cracks to the thickest ares of the red impasto, which are inherent to the artist’s choice of media.
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Chosen as the cover image for Cesare Brandi's 1977 monography, L'Approdo from 1963 by Afro is a breathtaking example by the artist. Conveying the new aesthetics championed at the time by Abstract-Expressionism, this joyously lyrical work embodies the ultimate emancipation and refinement of Afro's original and audacious painterly vision, a powerful testament to the creative powers of the mature artist. The interlocking mesh of colours and rhythmical forms of this very much resolved composition with rich red and cream hues subsume the viewer with its seductive saturation. The masterly applied collage and the layered brushstrokes eradicate any vanishing point of perspective from the picture plane celebrating the artist's gestural act as the principal focus of attention.

 

In 1963, the year the present work was executed, Afro had reached his artistic maturity and had already received international recognition at the Venice Biennale in 1956. Having worked for the new Unesco Headquarters in Paris at the Mural Garden of Hope, Afro was in contact with many international artists and with leading American artists that were visiting Rome at the time, such as Pollock, Kline and Twombly, and had exhibited himself in New York at the Viviano Gallery. A further great influence on Afro was Arshile Gorky's surreal abstraction, whose exhibition Afro curated at Galleria dell'Obelisco in Rome in 1957. In the late 1950s, Afro embraces expressive abstraction and he liberally started employing the variations inherent in the painting process to articulate considerable emotion. Having abandoned any figurative allusion and geometrical inspirations, Afro became the most celebrated Italian artist to champion gestural abstraction and to translate strong emotions in his work. As Afro observed, "the pictorial image realised itself in an organic and unexpected way; the forms expand in an unexpected way and the colours take on a life on their own." (the artist cited in: Pittori Italiani di Oggi, Rome 1958, pp. 93-94).

 

L'Approdo encapsulate Afro's mature achievements and is infused with natural beauty. Its tactile surface, vibrant colours and visual plenitude are a full celebration of joy and life, which is signature of the highest artist moments in Afro's production. As James Johnson Sweeney observed: "The basic spirit of his art is festive. Though a wistful note may occasionally creep into his palette, he never strikes a tragic one. His natural expression is too full of the love of living to allow even a hint of trouble, actual as it may be to him, to show through the joy and gayety which is the dialect he consistently speaks - or sings" (James Johnson Sweeny, Afro, New York 1961.)