39
WIFREDO LAM
"Personnage N. 2", 1939
- Provenance: Bill Copley, New York, New York; Galleria Alexander Iolas, Milan, Italy; Private Collection, Milan; Private Collection, California
- Literature: Max-Pol Fouchet, "Wifredo Lam", (Barcelona, Spain: Ediciones Poligrafa, S.A.), 1984, p. 48, no. 24 (illustrated in color); Michael Leiris, "Wifredo Lam", (Milan, Italy: Fratelli Fabbri Editori), 1970, p. 32-33, cat. no. 25 (illustrated in color).
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Notes: A true picture has the power to set the imagination to work even if it takes time. Wifredo Oscar de la Concepcion Lam Yam y Castilla was born in Cuba to a Chinese immigrant father and a mother of Afro-Hispanic descent. His blended cultural heritage combined with his extensive travels and interest in African art and culture informed his artistic production.
Lam invented his own painting style calling it "an act of decolonization not in a physical sense, but in a mental one." He is influential in the history of Black art not only for his historical awareness but also because he embraced traditions that were dismissed by white elites, such as the Afro-Cuban religion Santeria. As an artist who trained in academic art and learned from European masters the tenets Cubism and Surrealism, his work pushed the boundaries of Modernism inviting a broader audience, challenging norms, and expanding the visual vocabulary.
In 1918 he arrived at the Havana School of Fine Arts and in 1923 went to Spain to study academic painting. While in Spain he fought in support of the Republican government during the Spanish Civil War and in 1938 fled Barcelona for Paris with a letter of introduction to Pablo Picasso. Picasso would later refer to Lam as his lost "cousin" and the two artists shared formal artistic concerns and mutual interests in myth and history. Lam lived in Paris from 1938-1941 and there met Surrealists including Andre Breton, Victor Brauner, Oscar Dominguez, and Roberto Matta. Inspired by Picasso's collection, Lam started collecting African art in the 1940s. Picasso introduced Lam to gallerist Pierre Loeb who organized Lam's first exhibition in Paris at the Galerie Pierre in 1939. The two artists exhibited together at the Perls Galleries in New York that same year. It was during this critical period in the artist's career that he painted the present lot, "Personnage #2", 1939. Through Picasso's collection, he studied African masks and was inspired by their reduction of facial features into shapes and lines. His work changed dramatically during this time from formal to increasingly abstract. In the catalogue raisonne of his work, scholar Ulrich Krempel notes, "Picasso, above all, and the Surrealist circle were among those who encouraged Lam in his artistic innovations, providing him also with his f irst public. From 1938, he painted prolifically...He gathered round him a figural world born of his imagination, memento-like images, views of past events, dreams and memories...Rhythm is developed through color pattern; forms surrender inner detail to the monumentality of their larger and more closed shapes." During World War II, Lam moved to Marseilles staying with artists and intellectuals before returning to Cuba in 1942. From there, he visited Martinique, Haiti, and the United States. Breton helped Lam sign on with the gallerist Pierre Matisse who organized solo exhibitions of Lam's work in New York in 1942 and 1944. In 1943, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), in New York City, acquired "The Jungle" (1943). The acquisition was followed by the arrival of the artist himself in 1945. In New York City, Lam befriended fellow avant-garde artists Marcel Duchamp, Arshile Gorky, Roberto Matta, Robert Motherwell, Isamu Noguchi, and Yves Tanguy. He visited artists in Long Island, New Jersey and Connecticut including Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, Alexander Calder, and Kay Sage. In 1947, Lam returned to Paris and participated in Le Surrealisme, an exhibition organized by Breton and Duchamp. He purchased a home in Albissola, Italy in 1961 near his friend Danish artist Asger Jorn. His legacy in the history of Modern Art is documented in numerous international museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Guggenheim Museum in New York City; the Tate Gallery in London; the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo; and Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico. -
Condition: there is scattered restoration visible under UV light; and scattered minor craquelure in some areas; the old patched area on the reverse corresponds to a minor repair in the left circle on the figure's chest; additional photos are available upon request; additional condition report available upon request
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