Wifredo Lam - Havana Years

Havana Years

Upon Lam's return to Havana, he developed a new awareness of Afro-Cuban traditions. He noticed that the descendents of the slaves were still being oppressed and that the Afro-Cuban culture was degraded and made picturesque for the sake of tourism. He believed that Cuba was in danger of losing its African heritage and therefore sought to free them from cultural subjugation. In an interview with Max-Pol Fouchet, he said,

"I wanted with all my heart to paint the drama of my country, but by thoroughly expressing the negro spirit, the beauty of the plastic art of the blacks. In this way I could act as a Trojan horse that would spew forth hallucinating figures with the power to surprise, to disturb the dreams of the exploiters."

Additionally, his time in Cuba marked a rapid evolution of his style. Drawing from his study of tropical plants and familiarity with Afro-Cuban culture, his paintings became characterized by the presence of a hybrid figure—part human, animal and vegetal elements. His style was also distinctive because of its fusion of Surrealist and Cubist approaches with imagery and symbols from Santería. In 1943, he began his best-known work, The Jungle. It reflected his mature style, depicting four figures with mask-like heads, half-emerging from dense tropical vegetation. Later that year, it was shown in an exhibition at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York where it created controversy. The painting depicted the tension between Modernism and the vibrancy and energy of African culture. The Jungle was ultimately purchased by the Museum of Modern Art N.Y. It is often compared to Picasso's Guernica, which is hung in the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid.

Lam continued to simplify and synthesize abstraction yet continued painting figurally; he also kept on developing the mythology and totemism that defined his style. In 1944, he married Helana Holzer, whom he divorced in 1950. In 1946, he and Breton spent four months in Haiti, enriching his already extensive understanding and knowledge of African divinity and magic rituals through observing Voodoun ceremonies. Although he later said that his contact with the African spirituality that he found throughout the Americas did not directly impact his formal style. African poetry, on the other hand, was said to have had a broadening effect on his paintings. In 1950 Wifredo Lam worked together with René Portocarrero and others in the village Santiago de Las Vegas, the group of painters worked on ceramic. In 1952, Lam settled in Paris after having divided his time between Cuba, New York and France.

Lam, who continued to sympathize with the common man, exhibited a series of paintings at Havana University in 1955, to demonstrate his support for the students’ protests against Batista's dictatorship. Similarly, in 1965, 6 years after the revolution, Lam showed his loyalty to Castro and his goals of social and economic equality by painting El Tercer Mundo (The Third World) for the presidential palace. In 1960, Lam established a studio in Albissola Marina on Italy's northwest coast and settled there with his wife Lou Laurin, a Swedish painter, and their three sons. In 1964, he was awarded the Guggenheim International Award and between 1966 and 1967 there were many retrospectives of his work throughout Europe. At the encouragement of Asger Jorn and after being intrigued by the local pottery making, Lam began to experiment with ceramics and had his first ceramic exhibition in 1975. He progressed to model sculptures and cast in metal in his twilight years, often depicting personages similar to those he had painted.

Wifredo Lam died on September 11, 1982 in Paris. Having had over one hundred personal exhibitions around the world, Lam had a well established reputation by the time of his death.