English Notes (Continuation) Wifredo LAM 1902-1982 SANS TITRE, 1942 Picasso introduced him into the milieu of the greatest painters of that time: Miro, Léger, Matisse, Braque … and also to famous art dealers such as Pierre Loeb and Henri Kahnweiler. During his two-year stay in Paris (1938-1940), Lam visited Picasso, saw his paintings, worked with him. In 1939, the Perls Gallery showed them together in a two-man show. A true friendship and mutual admiration linked the two artists, with Picasso exercising a very real, and obvious, influence on the paintings of the young Cuban. For example, during the years 1938-1940, Picasso painted a series of canvases of Dora sitting in an armchair or chair where the back of the chairs is visible, such as Femme assise (27 April 1938) in ink, gouache, and colored chalk on paper Beyeler Collection, Zervos IX, 133), Femme assise sur une chaise (7 May 1938), an oil on paper (Zervos IX 145), Dora Maar assise (13 May 1938)(fig. 1) and Le chandail jaune (31 October 1939), oil on canvas (Berggruen collection), and so forth. “The rigidity of a sphinx, strict frontality, […], geometrical volumes enhanced by black interlaced lines,” writes Brigitte Léal on these works. Untitled could be described in exactly these terms, with the addition of the word “asexual”. When Lam executed Untitled in 1942, he had already left Paris two years ago for Cuba, his native island, after having entrusted his studio to Picasso prior to departure. Between 1940 and 1942, he transcribed his personal pain and the pain of a world at war in his work. For the first time he felt the need to reveal his own state of mind. He “synthesizes his feelings” by painting isolated, mute, hieratic figures imprisoned by their pain. The figures are always women, painted front-on from the bust upwards, often sitting in a chair or an armchair whose back can be seen. Reminiscences of Picasso's oeuvre in Lam's pictorial language are evident, but it is interesting to note that the feelings driving these two artists are of a different order: Picasso paints a weeping woman, since Dora often cries, while Lam paints despair. José Allyon wrote about these portraits, including Untitled, one of the last to be painted: “The austerity of the image is emphasized by an abstemious use of color. Suffering has rarely been depicted with such an economy of means, with such truth and esthetic conviction.” The artist, matured by his stylistic experiments and supported by his return to his own country, is in a state of grace. Untitled is part of the magnificent series executed just prior to the time when he began working on La Jungle. Fig. 1: Dora Maar assise, 13 May 1938, India ink, gouache, and oil on paper, Zervos, IX, n° 152. Literature : Max-Pol Fouchet, Wifredo Lam, Editions Cercle d'Art, 1976; 1938, Paris, Musée d'art moderne de la ville, Wifredo Lam (text by José Ayllon) Lam, un peintre prédestiné); Lou Laurin-Lam, Wifredo Lam, Catalogue raisonné of the Painted Work, vol. 1, Acatos, 1996; Picasso et le portrait, text by Brigitte Léal, “Per Dora Maar tan rebuffon”*, Réunion des musées nationaux, Flammarion, 1996. *In Catalan: “For Dora Maar, so charming”.