English Notes Wifredo LAM 1902-1982 SANS TITRE, 1942 “When we analyze the artistic trajectory of Wifredo Lam, one fact stands out, a fact that is not highlighted in writings about his work. How is it possible that he became in only a few years one of the most significant painters in the art of the 20th century? Lam arrived in Paris in 1938. He was almost completely unknown, having abandoned Spain at the end of the civil war like so many others after spending fifteen years in that country. The only difference, we might observe, is that he was of mixed race and originally from Cuba. […] All great artists, in this first third of the twentieth century, needed many years of work and struggle against adversity to impose their style. Yet Lam succeeded in shortening this long and difficult process - he only needed four years,” writes José Ayllon in his preface to the catalog of the 1983 Lam exhibit in Paris. The four-year period begins in 1938, the year he arrived in Paris and ends in 1942 when he executed La Jungle, painted in Cuba and presented the subsequent year at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York where it provoked a huge scandal. His notoriety and real recognition of Lam's work date from this time. Wifredo Lam spent his childhood and youth in Cuba, leaving in 1923 at the age of 21 years for Madrid. The young artist frequented the studio of the reactionary painter Fernandez Alvarez de Sotomayor in the morning, and in the afternoon, starting at 6 p.m., he worked at the Academie Libre in Alhambra passage. These long years working in Spain gave him an awareness of his own identity. He participated in the political scene of the country and married a Spanish woman in 1929 who bore him a son. His wife and son died in 1931. This family tragedy, followed by the Spanish civil war, had a major impact on the pictorial works Wifredo Lam subsequently created. In 1938 at the age of 36, Wifredo met Picasso thanks to a letter of introduction to Picasso from the sculptor Manolo Hugué and they two artists became friends. “Even if you had shown up without Manolo's letter in your pocket, if I had seen you in the street I would have said, I want to be a friend of that man,” said Picasso. See continuation to the next lot