Afro Libio Basaldella, known professionally as Afro, was born in Udine, Italy on March 4, 1912. He trained in Florence and Venice, where he received a diploma in painting in 1931. The following year he spent time in Milan where, with his brother Mirko, he frequented Arturo Martini’s studio. He also met Renato Birolli and Ennio Morlotti, with whom he showed at the Galleria Il Milione. The gallery also hosted Afro’s first solo exhibition in 1935. Back in Rome in 1935 (his first stay there having taken place in 1929) he exhibited works inspired by Corrado Cagli and the Roman School at the second Rome Quadriennale.

In 1936 the fascist regime removed the decorations he had made for the Collegio dell’Opera Nazionale Ballila of Udine, claiming they did not sufficiently glorify the regime. The following year he held a solo exhibition at the Galleria della Cometa in Rome and afterwards travelled to Paris, where he was profoundly inspired by the work of the Impressionists. In 1938 Afro participated in the Venice Biennale, and during World War II taught mosaic-making at Venice's Accademia di Belle Arti. During this period Afro also made the cartoon for the mosaic decoration of the Palazzo dell’EUR in Rome, where his still lifes and portraits display a clear Cubist influence. This was the first stage in his shift towards abstraction. In the United States he came into contact with the Art Informel movement, and his subsequent paintings showed the influence of Arshile Gorky’s work and Jackson Pollock’s Action Painting.

In 1950 he held a solo exhibition at the Catherine Viviano Gallery in New York, and in 1952 he joined the Gruppo degli Otto, with whom he exhibited in 1956 at the Venice Biennale and went on to win the prize for best Italian painter. In 1958 he painted a large-scale mural for the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Two years later he received the Guggenheim Award in New York and in 1971 the Presidente della Repubblica Prize at the Accademia di San Luca in Rome. He taught painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Flonce until 1973. Afro died in Zurich, on July 24, 1976.