Wifredo Lam (1902-1982)

Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York
Acquavella Modern Art, Reno
Galerie Lelong, Paris

New York, Pierre Matisse Gallery, Lam, Recent Paintings, 1945
New York, Pierre Matisse Gallery, Wifredo Lam, Early Works, 1942-1951, 1982, n. 11, illustrated
San Juan, Arsenal de la Puntilla, Wifredo Lam, obras desde 1938 hasta 1975, de regreso al Caribe, 1992
New York, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Wifredo Lam and his Contemporaries 1938-1952, 1992, p. 122, n. 98, illustrated in color

M. Leiris, Lam, Milano, 1970, n. 52, illustrated
M.-P. Fouchet, Wifredo Lam, Barcelona/Paris, 1976 ed., p. 233, n. 378, illustrated
Lou Laurin-Lam, Wifredo Lam: Catalogue Raisonné of the Painted Work, Volume I, 1923-1960, Lausanne, 1996, p. 368, n. 45.03

This large composition is in very good condition. The canvas is unlined however there is a piece of canvas which has been added to the edges to properly secure the picture on the stretcher. The very delicate and thin paint layer is in beautiful state. None of the pigment is abraded. There are a few spots which read slightly darker under ultraviolet light however they do not appear to be retouches. These are situated in the center of the right side and in all likelihood correspond to heavier applications of paint. Nonetheless, the condition is beautiful and this delicate picture should be treated with care and hung as is. (This condition report has been provided courtesy of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.)
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

While his particular synthesis of Cubism and Surrealism predicated the success of Wifredo Lam in the period of 1941-43, he did not linger long in that mode. In fact a glimpse at the entire decade of the 1940s reveals a restless experimentation that resulted in his moving through several stylistic approaches, often working on subsequent ones at the same time. Sur les traces [also known as Transformation] was one of several black and white compositions exhibited in Lam's 1945 exhibition, Lam, Recent Paintings at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York City. Others included Rythme mimétique (Fundactó Joan Miró, Barcelona), Au défut du jour (Collection R and N. Cernuda, Miami). Their open forms could be glimpsed in several works of 1944 particularly Les Noces chimiques (Private collection, New York) and Sans Titre (lot 16)

In these compositions the fluid, multi-referential forms of the earlier 1940s that flowed effortlessly one into the other—creating "cadaver-exquise"-like hybrids of human, plant and animal entities—and the strong, angular references to African and Pacific art forms have given way to shapes articulated by stippled brushwork that silhouettes their form. The visual effect is one in which metaphysical forces emerge from the foliage of the Cuban landscape, barely perceptible except in Lam's delicate drawing on the canvas. While here color has been drastically reduced to black or white, in related compositions such as San Titre the palette consists of daubs of fully-saturated red, blues, greens, yellow and orange. These compositions tend to focus on plant life and still life with only shadowy references to any figures—human or other worldly. This composition is anchored by three vertical elements that dominate the composition by virtue of their more dramatic light/dark articulation. At the left there is a lit candle in an elaborate holder; slightly higher or further back in the composition two vessel-like forms against a diamond shaped one; and then slightly lower to the right a composite form with the diamond-shaped or rhomboids that became Lam's familiar mode for indicating a spiritual presence. Four horns protrude from each plane of the diamond and they are framed by angular auras.

These three forms are situated in a complex of forms that are both distinctive and co-joined. At the upper left of ghostly forms that defy identification that sit on a ledge that morphs into an organic form that joins the central vessel forms. They in turn are joined to the right hand side of the composition by lines that resemble elements borne by Lam's "femme chevals" that can be read variously as hair, a horse tail or flows of water. This central form is framed by a shadowy entity sporting multiple horns or knives that suggests those seen at the right hand side of  Lam's 1944 composition, "L'Annonciation" (Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago) or the centrally place figure in Le Présence eternal [Hommage à Alejandro Garcia Cartula] of the same year. At the center, nestled under two of the many arc-ing phalanges, one of the "popcorn" floral motifs that appear in the interstitial spaces among the tobacco leaves and cane stalks of the 1942-1943 compositions can be sighted. This seeming insignificant compositional device would appear later in the 1950s to form the facial features of a number of female busts.  

But what is most telling are the new elements in this composition: three egg forms at the lower edge of the composition. They are incubating in nests that sprout the aforementioned horn/ knife forms and striated markings of light beams. This egg form would become the pivotal element in Lam's 1947 Nativité [Annonciation] (Private Collection, San Juan) where it is being "birthed" from a womb-like form surmounted by phalanges and horns seen here in Sur les Traces. By the later 1940s such elements coalesce into references to esoteric belief and ritual where the luminous egg shape recalls the fabled philosopher's stone. The introduction of these elements demonstrates how Lam's creative sources become increasing eclectic and guide the evolution of his stylistic development.   

It is important to note that this painting was first seen in New York City in Lam's third exhibition at the Pierre Matisse gallery in 1945. The gallery had been an important and essential site where Lam's work was introduced to the art world in New York. Cuba was more isolated despite refugees like Pierre Loeb and Igor Stravinsky who took up residence there during World War II, and incredibly Lam didn't have a solo exhibition of his work in Cuba until 1946 because of his complicated relationship with the Cuban vanguard artists. As Julia Herzberg notes writings and reactions to Lam's work in Cuba was predicated on a wide-spread familiarity with African cultures and recognition of those elements his work.[1] This is reflected in the writing on Lam's work by individuals such as Lydia Cabrera, Alejo Carpentier and Pierre Loeb in Cuban periodicals such as Gaceta del Caribe and Orígenes: Revista de arte y Literatura.[2] In January 1945, the French critic and diplomat Pierre Mabille published an article on Lam in Tropiques, the journal created and edited by the Martincan poet Aimé Césaire, his wife Suzanne and writer René Ménil. Although both Lam and Césaire had been expatriates in Paris before the outbreak of World War II, they did not meet until 1941 when Lam was temporarily quarantined on Martinique with the fabled group of Surrealists including André Breton who had been evacuated from France with the help of Varian Fry and Operation Rescue. In the Caribbean the dynamics of modernist primitivism were enfolded within the discourse on history, decolonialism and landscape that defined the cultural and political aspirations of that part of the world.

Lam's presentation in New York resulted in his work being seen in the context of the burgeoning Abstract Expressionist movement. That is reflected in the critical response to his work at this time. Some critical reviews complained that compared to work seen in previous years the work of 1945 seems more "anemic," "thin and sparse" with its "stippled...black and white forms."[3] On the other hand, Margaret Breuning notes importantly in Art Digest that Lam had evolved beyond his Surrealist roots and was now creating "an occult mysterious universe governed not by the laws that regulate our cosmos, but by some undercurrent of magic."[4] While Breuning goes onto note the relationship of Lam's work to "Chinese painting....Primitive African art, and ....the symbolic figure of the Alaskan Indians," she concludes that his work does not "so much" represent "realities" as it does "the symbols of an inner mystical existence."[5]

We read here a sense that developments in Lam's art at this time—produced in Cuba—parallels that of his Abstract Expressionist contemporaries in New York City. Lam reflects the emphasis on mythic and sacred pretentions that mark the early development of this movement. While the Americans focused on Native American and the Pacific, Lam's amalgamation of African, Pacific and Afro-Cuban elements found a comparable expression in his experimentation with form and color. It is then most interesting to read an unsigned article in the August 12, 1946  of Newsweek magazine in which the writer positions Lam, along with Robert Motherwell and Adolph Gottlieb as artists "being identified with the new trend" that are "evolve[ing] shapes, images and ideas of the subconscious."[6] Lam's relationship with the then burgeoning Abstract Expressionist movement continued into the late 1940s when reproductions of his work were published in periodicals such as Tiger's Eye and Instead. It was fostered also by the artistic circles he moved in during his post-war sojourns to New York City. Two artists who met him on his first trip were Arshile Gorky and Jeanne Reynal and among the others he met and socialized with were Motherwell, Isamu Noguchi, Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner.

Lowery Stokes Sims

 

[1] See Julia P. Herzberg, "Wifredo Lam: The Development of A Style and Wrodl View, The Havana Years, 1941-1952," in Wifredo Lam and His Contemporaries, 1938-1952, [exh. cat.]. (New York: The Studio Museum in Harlem, 1992), 31-51.

[2] Ibid, 47.

[3] "Wifredo Lam, Gouaches at Pierre Matisse," Art News 44 (December 15-31, 1945), 21.

[4] Margaret Breuning, "Lam's Magical Incantations and Rituals," Art Digest 20 (December 1, 1945), 16.

[5] Ibid.