Wifredo Lam

WIFREDO LAM CASTILLA (Sagua La Grande, Cuba, 1902 – Paris, 1982).
“Double personnage,” 1979.
Lithograph, E.A. edition.
Signed and numbered by hand.
Measurements: 47 x 36.5 cm.

Wifredo Lam’s style is a unique synthesis of Cubism, Surrealism, and Afro-Caribbean visual traditions. His work is characterized by a symbolic language in which human figures, animals, and plants merge into compositions of great poetic and spiritual power.

Wifredo Lam studied Fine Arts in Havana, where he made a name for himself at the Salon of the Association of Painters and Sculptors. In 1923, he moved to Madrid on a scholarship from the City Council of Sagua La Grande, where he continued his training in the studio of Fernando Álvarez de Sotomayor and at the Academia Libre del Pasaje de la Alhambra. In 1938, he traveled to Paris, and the following year he held a solo exhibition there. During World War II, Lam remained in the Caribbean, in contact with representatives of the avant-garde such as Masson and Breton, and in the second half of the 1940s, he divided his time between Cuba, New York, and Paris, the latter of which he made his home in 1952. In 1961, he received the International Guggenheim Award. His work is represented in the Guggenheim and MoMA in New York, the Museo Patio Herreriano in Valladolid, the Tate Gallery in London, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, among many other public and private collections.