Night Watchman

Following a visit to Madrid, Basaldella (known simply as “Afro”) painted this abstracted figure as described in a letter: “El Sereno (The Night Watchman) is a very poetic kind of person.… He is the watchman, a person of confidence in the street in which one lives... one hears him walking in the silence of the night with the noise of the keys that he shakes, and of the noise of the walking stick which he beats on the pavement of the street.” Illuminated by lantern light, the layering of bright patches of color and dark shadow suggest the watchman’s movement through the still night, while his jingling key ring hangs at lower left.