Wifredo Lam

(1902 - 1982)

Sant'Erasmo Club d'Arte, Milan, as per stamp on authenticated photograph;

Soave Art Gallery, Alexandria, as per stamp on authenticated photograph;
Collezione privata, Roma

Photograph of the artwork authenticated by the artist on February 1st 1975

Blindarte kindly thanks Eskil Lam, artist's son, for verbally confirming the authenticity of the artwork

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Born in Sagua la Grande (Cuba) in 1902, Wifredo Lam is known for his style that combines elements of cubism, surrealism, African and Cuban art. In 1938 he moved to Paris where he met Pablo Picasso, with whom he became a friend. During the fifties, while continuing to maintain close relations with the Cuban artistic environment, he worked with artists from the CoBrA group and the Italian avant-garde, until the experience of Albissola Marina together with Asger Jorn, Karel Appel, Enrico Baj, Lucio Fontana and others.

Among the animals that Lam most often depicts in his works, such as that of 1960 here proposed, there are birds, which play a prominent role in the Cuban rituals of santería, where they are used to communicate with the gods. The artist, through the use of crayons on paper, portrays the stylized profile of seven birds within a background of yellow, blue, orange and red colors thus creating these original spiritual totems, typical of the search of the great Cuban artist.