Born in Chaves in 1920. He graduated in architecture from the Porto School of Fine Arts and attended the Paris School of Fine Arts in 1946, the city where he lived for many years and where he had the opportunity to develop his knowledge and contacts , having worked in the studio by Corbusier and lived with Vasarely to whom he was linked by a relationship of friendship and an affinity on an aesthetic level. 

Opting definitively for painting, Nadir Afonso abandoned architecture in 1965, maintaining, however, many ties with his training as an architect, in the way he privileges urban architectures, within the language of a geometrism that began to define his style, from the fifties onwards, integrating the movement into the 'Espacillimité' series. in 1955, and later to the language that best defines the artist's style, a geometricism with figurative references to real or invented urban landscapes.

He was the author of important public works such as the project for the Panificadora de Chaves (building of municipal interest and one of the 100 most significant works of Portuguese architecture of the 20th century), the panels for the station of the Restauradores of the Metropolitano de Lisboa (1996), created, in 2006, a tile panel for the Coina Railway Station, created a tile panel for the Boticas Town Hall, in 2009 and created tile panels for the access tunnel to the entrance. Beach in Cascais, in 2011. 

He was decorated, on June 10, 1084, by the President of the Republic General Ramalho Eanes with the Military Order of Santiago de Espada.

His work can be found in several public and private collections. 

He passed away at the age of 93, on December 11, 2013, in Cascais.