Afro (Afro Basaldella)

Catalogue entry

Afro 1912-1976

T00017 The Struggle 1951

Inscribed 'Afro 51' b.r.
Black crayon, wax crayon, watercolour and gouache on paper, 10 1/2 x 8 1/4 (26.5 x 21)
Purchased from the artist (Knapping Fund) 1955
Exh: Afro, Galleria dell'Obelisco, Rome, April-May 1953 (among eight unnumbered gouaches listed as 'Autobiografia' Nos. 1, 3-5,7, 8, 10 and 13)

The artist said that this drawing (which was acquired untitled) was not done as a study for a large painting, but he afterwards, in 1952, made a painting 175 x 145cm closely based on it which he called 'La Sopraffazione' (The Struggle). It belongs to a series of fifteen drawings which he intended to group together in a book without text under the title 'Autobiography'. The composition is based on two standing female figures, one of whom is trying to strike the other, though the subject is not itself of much importance (letter of 29 September 1957).

Published in:
Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, p.3, reproduced p.3

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