Wifredo LAM (1902-1982)

A Cuban painter whose international renown has never been eclipsed, Wifredo Lam was at the initiative of a mixed painting that combines Western modernism and African symbolism..

  • Wifredo Lam : a great painter and poet | Read more

Selection of works by Wifredo Lam

Wifredo Lam, Caracas, 1957, Pastel 63 x 47cm
Wifredo Lam
Caracas
1957
Pastel
63 x 47cm

 Price upon request. Contact us.

 


Wifredo Lam: a great painter and poet

The poet Aimé Césaire, who was his friend, pointed out how much Wifredo Lam loved freedom and invented his own language to better ‘defend the dignity of life’ but also inclined to observe the problems of contemporary reality to better confront them. Aimé Césaire added that Wifredo Lam knows better than anyone how to “paint the drama of his country, the cause and spirit of the blacks”.

If Lam is “the soul of his time, a struggle for justice and the liberation of the oppressed”, he also wanted to be of his time alongside avant-garde movements, cubism, surrealism and the Cobra movement because they favoured access to the subconscious and explored the wonderful and transcended it until graphic automatism.

A painter of water, air, wind, living light, “his drawing is in perfect harmony with his painting…”, Lam shows volumes, values, tones and suggests colour.

After the war, Wifredo Lam’s work will be internationally recognized.

He exhibits throughout the world and participates in major events of contemporary art of his time.

Since his death in 1982, Wifredo Lam has proven Picasso right when he said that he was a great painter and poet who was able to compete separately in a century already amply supplied with exceptional artists.

“I have never been wrong about you. You are a painter.
That’s why I said the first time we saw each other that
you reminded me of someone: me”

Pablo Picasso, to Wifredo Lam