Wifredo Lam grew up in Cuba with a grandmother who practised Voodoo rituals and came of age in Paris, where he and Picasso became very close friends and artistic associates. In 1939 he joined the Surrealists and he collaborated on a book, Fata Morgana, with André Breton, who wrote the text that accompanied Lam's drawings. After the Germans invaded France, Lam left Europe on the same ship as Breton and Masson, helped in part by the International Rescue Committee, in token of which, many years later, Lam contributed a lithograph to the Flight Portfolio as a fundraiser. Returning to Cuba, Lam's work continued to mix Afro-Cuban and European influences. After the war, Lam travelled before finally settling in Paris, with side trips to Italy. Where Picasso and the German Expressionists turned to African art to revitalize European traditions, Lam combines these traditions not as an outsider but as a rightful possessor of both. His art offers the fantastic images of a living but alien tradition to a world needing to find a new conception of the civilized. Lam's works are to be found in many important collections of modern art including the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum (NYC) and the Tate; his works have been shown at major museums and important galleries in New York, Paris, Düsseldorf, Madrid (the Reina Sofia), Barcelona (the Fondation Miró), The Art Institute (Chicago), the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Carnegie Institute (Pittsburgh), the Kassel Documenta (1959, 1960, 1965), the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), the Venice Biennale (1972), the Museo de Arte Moderno (Mexico), the National Museum of Modern Art (Tokyo), and many others. Since his death, there has been an emerging consensus that Lam is one of the most important artists of the 20th century.

Bibliography: General works: Maria R. Balderrama, Wifredo Lam and his Contemporaries 1938-1952 (NY: Studio Museum in Harlem, 1992); Bronx Museum of the Arts, The Latin American Spirit: Art and Artists in the United States, 1920-1970 ( NY: Abrams," 1988); Catherine David, Wifredo Lam (Paris: Galerie Lelong, 1991);Valerie Fletcher, Crosscurrents of Modernism: Four Latin American Pioneers. Diego Rivera, Joaquin Torres-Garcia, Wifredo Lam, Matta (Washington, D.C.: Hirshhorn Museum, 1992); Max-Pol Fouchet, Wifredo Lam. Trans. Kenneth Lyons and Richard-Lewis Rees. 2nd Ed. (Barcelona: Ediciones Poligrafa, 1989); Pierre Gaudibert et al, Wifredo Lam (Düsseldorf: Kunstsammlung Nordheim-Westfalen, 1988); Pontus Hulten, Wifredo Lam (Stockholm: Moderna Museet, 1967); Ulrich Krempel, Wifredo Lam (Paris: Galerie Lelong, 1988); Michel Leiris., Wifredo Lam (NY: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1970); Michel Leiris et al, Wifredo Lam 1902-1982 (Paris: Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1983); Wifredo Laurin-Lam, Wifredo Lam: Catalogue Raisonne of the Painted Work Volume I: 1923-1960 (Lausanne: Acatus, 1996); Ministerio de la Cultura de Espana Y Ministerio de la Cultura de Cuba, Homenaje a Wifredo Lam 1902-1982 (Madrid, 1982; catalogue to accompany the retrospective exhibition at the Museo Nacional de Arte Contemporáneo, Madrid, the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and the Musée d'Ixelles, Bruxelles); Centro del Arte Reina Sofia, Wifredo Lam (Madrid: Centro del Arte Reina Sofia, 1992); Lowery Stokes Sims, Wifredo Lam and the International Avante-Garde, 1923-1982 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002); Philippe Soupault, Wifredo Lam: Dessins (Dutrou: Editions Galilee, 1975); Patrick Waldberg, Wifredo Lam (Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum, 1967).

Prints: Dominique Tonneau-Ryckelynck, Wifredo Lam: Oeuvre gravé et lithographie. Catalogue raisonné. (Gravelines: Musée de Gravelines, 1994).

Acide doux (L. 7308). Original color lithograph, 1973. 90 signed & numbered impressions and 30 artist's proofs on Rives, plus 20 HC impressions on velin de Zerkall. Printed by Erker Presse in St Gallen and published in Hommage à Picasso (Berlin, 1973). Exhibited in museum shows in Stockholn, Paris, Barcelona, and Beijing. Image size: 760x560mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Montée de sèves (L. 7410). Original color lithograph, 1974. 262 signed & numbered impressions on Arches paper (of which ours is 117/262) and 50 on Japon for the portfolio Pleni Luna. This work has been exhibited in museum shows in Stockholn, Malmo, Mexico City, Copenhagen, and Beijing. One of Lam's most beautiful color prints. Published in Stockholm by A. H. Grafik in 1974. Image size: 650x498mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Belle épine (L. 7412). Original color lithograph, 1974. 262 signed & numbered impressions onArches paper and 50 on Japon for the portfolio Pleni Luna. This work has been exhibited in museum shows in Stockholn, Malmo, Mexico City, Copenhagen, and Beijing. One of Lam's most beautiful color prints. Published in Stockholm by A. H. Grafik in 1974. Image size: 650x498mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Elle, casqué (L. 7414). Original color lithograph, 1974. 262 signed & numbered impressions on Arches paper (of which ours is 117/262) and 50 on Japon for the portfolio Pleni Luna. This work has been exhibited in museum shows in Stockholn, Malmo, Mexico City, Copenhagen, and Beijing. One of Lam's most beautiful color prints. Published in Stockholm by A. H. Grafik in 1974. Image size: 650x498mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Soeur de la Gazelle (L. 7416). Original color lithograph, 1974. 262 signed & numbered impressions on Arches paper (of which ours is 117/262) and 50 on Japon for the portfolio Pleni Luna. This work has been exhibited in museum shows in Stockholn, Malmo, Mexico City, Copenhagen, and Beijing. One of Lam's most beautiful color prints. Published in Stockholm by A. H. Grafik in 1974. Image size: 650x498mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Innocence (L. 7417). Original color lithograph, 1974. 262 signed & numbered impressions on Arches paper (of which ours is 117/262) and 50 on Japon for the portfolio Pleni Luna. This work has been exhibited in museum shows in Stockholn, Malmo, Mexico City, Copenhagen, and Beijing. One of Lam's most beautiful color prints. Published in Stockholm by A. H. Grafik in 1974. Image size: 650x498mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Bonjour Max Ernst (L. 7603). Original color lithograph, 1975. 100 signed and numbered impressions on Arches. A very rich print done in tribute to Max Ernst, one of the fathers of the Surrealist movement. This work has been exhibited in museum shows in Geneva, Barcelona, Stockholn, and Beijing. Image size: 622x485mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Les loa petro enfantent dans la danse (L. 7305). Original color lithograph, 1973. 180 signed and numbered impressions on different papers. This work has been exhibited in museum shows in Savona, Söderberg, Paris, and Beijing. A very beautiful and striking piece. Image size: 640x500mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Paris (L. 7618). Original color lithograph, 1976. 99 signed and numbered impressions on Guarro paper. Image size: 760x560mm. Price: SOLD.

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