In accordance with National Hispanic Month, the Haggerty Museum in Milwaukee is hosting a rare retrospective exhibition of sixty paintings by Cuban Surrealist Wilfredo Lam. The art has been collected from galleries around the world to create this single, stunning presentation of his seminal work. The show runs from October 11, 2007 to January 21, 2008. Check here for additional scheduled events planned for the exhibition.
Born in 1902 in Sagua la Grande, Cuba, Lam's family moved to Havana where he attended the Escuela de Bellas Artes. In 1923, Lam moved to Madrid where he continued his studies at the studio of Fernando Alvarez de Sotomayor, the director of the Museo del Prado. Lam's early work was inspired by the Surrealist movement and by artists such as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, who encouraged Lam's interest in traditional African and Afro-Cuban art. He also traveled to Mexico and stayed with Frida Khalo and Diego Rivera.
Lam's work reflects his own multicultural heritage (the son of a Chinese father and a mother of mixed African, Indian, and European descent) and his growing interest in Santeria, a religion rooted in African traditions. During WWII, Lam returned to the Caribbean, along with anthropologist Claude Levis Strauss and author Andre Breton, whose prose poem, "Fata Morgana," Lam illustrated in 1940. Returning to Havana in 1941, Lam was introduced to Carl Jung's theories and began to produce some of his most powerful paintings, exploring the mythic themes and images of the Caribbean. "Jungle" (above), for example, considered to be Lam's masterpiece, intertwines figures and nature in a dense and vibrant landscape to create a visual experience of a spiritual state.
Lam's work offered a unique fusion of Afro-Caribbean spirit, Surrealism, and contemporary art. Throughout the 1950s and '60s Lam lived in Europe, settling for a time in Paris and later establishing a studio in Albisola Mare, on the Italian coast. In 1964 he received the Guggenheim International Award, and between 1966-67 there were multiple retrospectives of his work in several European cities. Lam died in 1982 in Paris.
Happily, this extraordinary show will be touring the United States after its opening at the Haggerty Museum of Art. The exhibition will travel to the Miami Art Museum, The Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, California, and the Salvador Dali Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida.
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