Wifredo Lam (Cuban, 1902-1982) Figura, 1961. Ink, watercolor and gouache on heavy paper. 15 X 9 inches Signed lower right WiLam. Espelocin Collection. COA included. This is a rare example of Lam’s work painted on an ultramarine ground. The color gives great contrast to the earth tones of the central subject which, together with the strong dark lines drawn with such consummate conviction, lift it right off the paper. Biography: Wifredo Lam (1902-1982) Born in Sagua La Grande, Cuba and classically trained in Havana at the Escuela Profesional de Pintura y Escultura, Academia de San Alejandro. In 1923 he won a grant to study in Europe, traveled to Spain and spent the next 14 year there where he developed his innovative ideas for the blending of traditional western classical art with folk or naïf art. During the Spanish civil war he sided with the Republicans against Franco’s fascism before leaving for Paris in 1936 where his friendship with Picasso brought him into contact with the heavyweights of the art and literary world of the time. Such people as Braque, Matisse, Miró, Léger, Eluard, Leiris, Tzara, Kahnweiler and Zervos who became hugely influencial to Lam. When WWII broke out he moved to Marseilles where he first produced the ink drawings for which he would become famous; hybrid figures in a cross-cultural style, namely Western modernism and Afro-Cuban symbolism. In 1941 he returned to Cuba via Martinique where he met the great poet, author and politician Aimé Césaire and they became life-long friends. Lam divided his time between Europe, Havana and New York and his reputation as an Modernist of world class stature was confirmed through appearances in prestigious publications and reviews internationally, such as VVV, Instead, ArtNews and View, and successful exhibitions of his work in the United States, Haiti, Cuba, France, Sweden, England, Mexico, Moscow and Prague. In 1964 he won the Guggenheim International Award for a large oil painting called “Tropic of Capricorn”. During his long and prolific career mostly as a painter, but also as a printmaker, sculptor and ceramicist, Lam became a master of line, form and color, raising cubism and surrealism to a new level of abstraction that addressed multi-ethnic, cultural and spiritual themes. There is also a compelling emotional tension and expression in his work, reminders of suffering and loss and yet at the same time always saluting human dignity and the cause of self-determination and celebrating cultural and spiritual freedom. Literature: Lou Laurin-Lam & Eskil Lam, Wifredo Lam, Catalogue raisonné of the Painted Work, Lausanne, 2002, vol. II : 1961-1982.

Excellent condition.