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Wifredo Lam

"I am not a painter, I think of too many things."

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Notes of biography

Wifredo Lam was born in 1902 in Sagua la Grande (Cuba). He was Yam Lam’s son, a Chinese emigrant who gave him birth in 84 years, and of Ana-Serafina, a Cuban halfcaste. He studied Law before leaving his island in 1923 for Spain.
Wifredo Lam knew that he could be only a creator, a painter or a poet; also he joined the Artcollege of Madrid where he would work in the painter Fernando Alvarez de Sotomayor’s atelier. His first personal exhibition was organized in 1928. The work of Wifredo Lam was in its halfcaste history (China, Africa, and the Antilles). The artist was notably inspired by Africans who brought in Cuba « their primitive culture, their magic religion, and its mystic aspect in narrow correspondence with the nature ».
During the Spanish civil war, Wifredo Lam fought for the republicans. He was obliged to take refuge in France in 1937; there, he met Picasso who helped him to find his place in the Parisian artistic environment and introduced him to his friends (Michel Leiris, Paul Eluard, Tristan Tzara, Léger, Braque, Miro, Christian Zervos, Matisse, etc.). In 1939, Lam got acquainted with Benjamin Peret; he joined André Breton and the surrealist movement. He painted, drew, etched imaginary and baroque worlds stemming from « the automatism of the thought ». Lam often worked by series. He made (1941), together with a group of surrealist artists, a journey in his native country. Wifredo Lam created human or animal forms that he laid into exuberant environments.
Later, the artist stylized his figures which became subjects-totems, "intimate confession" of his existence. He did an important graphic work (lithographs and etchings), illustrations for numerous works, wall frescoes, ceramics and terra-cottas.
Wifredo Lam died in Paris in 1982. According to the painter’s will, his ashes were transferred in Cuba, where was created in posthumous honoring, the "Centre Wifredo Lam" for the promotion and the study of the Third World-Plastic Arts.

Artists on display

The art and the artists display: proclamations, galleries, museums, personal or collective exhibitions. On walls or in shop windows, wise or rebels, posters warn, argue, show. Some were specially conceived by an artist for such or such event, other, colder, have only the letter.

Some were created in lithographic technic, most are simple offset reproductions. They are many those who like collecting these rectangles of paper, monochrome or in games of colours, in matt paper or brilliant, with many words or almost dumb.

We are happy also to be able to greet, by this pages, mythical galleries as those of Denise René, Louis Carré, Claude Bernard, Berheim Jeune, Maeght, Pierre Loeb and others.

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Complete work(s)

Complete work(s)
All the complete works

Bibliographic track and more

To read about the artist :
  • « Wifredo Lam », M. Leiris, Abrams, New York, et Fratelli Fabbri, Milan, 1970
  • « Lam », Alain Jouffroy, Ed. Georges Fall, Paris, 1970
  • « Wifredo Lam », MAM de la Ville de Paris, 1982
  • « Wifredo Lam », Max-Paul Fouchet, Poligrafa, Barcelone, Ed. Albin Michel, 1983
  • « W. Lam, les années cubaines », Maison de l’Amérique latine, Paris, 1989
  • « W. Lam and the international Avant-garde », L. S. Sims, Texas Univ. Press, 2002
  • « Lam et les poètes », D. Abadie, cat. d'expo., Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, Ed. Hazan, 2005
  • « Lam », Jacques Leenhardt, H.C. Ed., Paris, 2009
  • « W. Lam ou l'inventivité de la marge », D. Berthet, in revue Archipélies n°1, 2010
  • « Wifredo Lam », collectif, cat. d'expo., Ed. Centre Georges Pompidou, 2015
To read from the artist :
  • « Premier bilan de l’Art actuel, 1937-1953 », in Positions, Soleil Noir, 1953
  • « My Life with Wifredo Lam 1939-1950 », H. Benitez, Ed. Acatos, 1999
Website :
www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/lam

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Art movements

+ SURREALISM / 1924-1969 / Marcel Duchamp, Dora Maar, Kurt Schwitters, Taro Okamoto, Antonio Berni, etc.
All art movements

See & discover

Beyond works currently in stock, it seemed to me useful to combine business with pleasure by letting you discover others works by artists in my gallery. These artworks, now sold or removed from our website, have been in our stock in the past.

These pages will undoubtedly make it possible for some of you to associate an image with its title or the other way round, for others it will be a good time to discover more on such and such artist. For the sake of confidentiality – the pieces being no longer available – we won't display neither their numbering or their price. For whatever reason, make sure to visit this amazing art database with to date 6441 online works just for your pleasure! Michelle Champetier

See & discover