Wifredo Lam (1902-1982)

Private collection, Spain
Art Now Gallery, Sweden
Sale: Christie's, New York, Important Latin American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, November 19, 1991, lot 39, illustrated in color

Lou Laurin Lam and Eskil Lam, Wifredo Lam Catalogue Raisonné of the Painted Work, Volume I 1923-1960, Lausanne, 1996, no. 44.08, p. 342, illustrated

This canvas has been lined and the paint layer is stable. It was probably lined because the paint layer had cracked fairly significantly. The cracking is now stable, although still raised and quite visible in areas. The paint layer is clean. There appear to be no retouches and it seems that although the cracking is quite visible and a second attempt at the lining could make improvements, the picture could be 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.

Soon after Wifredo Lam became disenchanted with the formal training he was receiving at the San Alejandro Academy, he abandoned school and made his obligatory sojourn to Europe.  His first stop was Spain where he lived in both Madrid and Barcelona, but was forced into exile with the increasing violence of the Spanish Civil War, where he fought with the Republican forces. After Lam arrived in Paris in 1939 he was befriended by Picasso as well as by André Breton and other Surrealist painters.  His years in Paris were especially productive and, like the other modernists working at that time, he increasingly incorporated elements derived from African art in his paintings.  His interest in African and Oceanic art sparked an interest in collecting masks and other sculpture of the so-called "primitive art" that was viewed as pure and uncorrupted from external influences.

Lam's godmother, Mantonica Wilson, was an "iyalorisha," or priestess, of the Santería faith and schooled the young boy in the intricacies of that African-based religion.  Though Lam never became a "babalorisha," or priest, himself, he was well indoctrinated in the different orishas or saints that inhabit the spirit world that originated in Yorùbá culture of Nigeria and Benin.  Unlike the other European painters who were borrowing inspiration from the aesthetic richness of African and Oceanic art, Lam was literally at home with African art and felt not only an artistic kinship but an emotional and spiritual affinity to the art of black Africa.  Indeed, in his 1947 exhibition at the Pierre Matisse Gallery, Lam juxtaposed African and Oceanic art next to his paintings.(1)

The subject of women took center stage throughout Lam's prolific career as a painter.  From his early portraits of women, which were inspired by Matisse's palette executed during the late 1930s, to the iconic Femme cheval series that preoccupied the artist for more than a decade, Lam never strayed far from the roles played by women in his quasi-surrealistic compositions that were infused with Santería iconography.  The present work, Femme, painted in 1947, boldly depicts Lam's triumphant synthesis of European Modernism and the forms and spirituality of African and Afro-Cuban traditions.  Like many of Lam's paintings of the second half of the 1940s, the artist has depicted his protagonist in center stage set against a monochromatic background.  The figure is well-defined by its strong delineation and sure line.  The nubile sitter assertively poses before the viewer, her fixed gaze is uninterrupted by the mask that disguises her human nature as she communes with the orishas who inhabit the spirit world. 

(1) Wifredo Lam and His Contemporaries, 1938-1952, Studio Museum of Harlem, 1992, Essay by Julia P. Herzberg, p. 43.