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Lot Essay
Protégé de Picasso et installé à Paris à partir de 1938 jusqu’en 1941, Wifredo Lam puise ses inspirations dans ses origines métisses : cubain de naissance, d’origine chinoise par son père et africaine/espagnole par sa mère. Sa peinture est un lien puissant entre les forces primitives et natives de l’Amérique, où se mêlent des énergies créatrices d’origines afro-asiatique avec la culture occidentale. Multiforme et colorée, la peinture de Lam arbore fièrement mille visages, dans une variété déconcertante, pleine de ferveur, emplie d’instinct créateur. Son geste décompose, démonte les sujets de ses toiles pour laisser place à une nouvelle picturalité où l’aspect plastique des éléments est mis de côté. L’imagination du spectateur parvient pourtant à en faire jaillir des ensembles inédits, grâce à des formes inspirées de la nature chère à l’artiste. Dans sa conception lyrique, Wifredo Lam n’en est pas moins un artiste classique comme en atteste Sans titre peint en 1964. Le style de l’artiste se renforce au cours des années 60 par des lignes incisives tracées sur la toile, par des courbes tendues, des reliefs aigus, des couleurs profondes et soutenues, un mouvement sûr et puissant. Cette peinture caractérisée d’autant de nuances que de technicité, Wifredo Lam la peaufine entre 1964 et 1965. Il partage alors son temps entre Albisola Mare, en Ligurie, où il fait construire un nouvel atelier, et Paris, où il passe l’autre moitié de son temps. Durant cette décennie, Lam s’intéresse de plus en plus à la gravure et collabore avec des poètes et des écrivains comme René Char, Alain Jouffroy ou encore Aimé Césaire. Il rencontre aussi le maître graveur Giorgio Upiglio à Milan, rencontre qui incitera Lam à déployer toute sa créativité.
À l’instar de cette toile, les visages peints humanisent profondément l’œuvre de Lam. Son style singulier est consacré par le Guggenheim Museum de New York en 1964 qui lui remet son International Award. Wifredo Lam s’inspire des hommes et de la nature, sans jamais négliger la réalité environnante. Loin de toute considération politique et philosophique qu’imposent les surréalistes de son temps, sans pour autant s’en détacher, Lam apparaît alors comme un trait d’union entre les cultures, la nature et l’art avec les hommes. Ses sujets deviennent même petit à petit des créatures célestes, mi-anges mi-volatiles, surplombant d’un air pensif et bienveillant les peintures de l’artiste. Ces créatures angéliques communiquent avec le spectateur, non par le moyen de la parole car souvent dénuées de bouches mais bien par leurs expressions. Rares sont les fois d’ailleurs où les corps sont entièrement révélés. Mais qu’importe puisque les toiles de Lam s’adressent de façon claire et évidente à qui les admire et les contemple. Lorsque le sujet du premier plan dans Sans titre, 1964 semble fixer le spectateur d’un air mélancolique, son compagnon hybride en arrière-plan, quant à lui, paraît indiquer une direction en déployant son aile, vers un espace hors de la toile. La parole n’est plus de mise mais le silence ainsi imposé n’en est pas moins évocateur de sens, multiple et ouvert à l’interprétation du spectateur, ouvrant ainsi la voie à un dialogue, une conversation intérieure. Sous l’influence de Wifredo Lam, l’espace pictural surréaliste est devenu un lieu de rencontre et de réconciliation entre les hommes et leurs cultures, où ses sujets aux expressions hiératiques témoignent, par la proximité que ses toiles donnent aux spectateurs, d’une douceur emplie d’humanité.
Under the wing of Picasso and having lived in Paris from 1938 until 1941, Wifredo Lam drew his inspiration from his mixed lineage: Cuban by birth, Chinese by his father and African/Spanish by his mother. His painting is a powerful link between the primitive and native forces of America, where creative energies of Afro-Asian origins are combined with Western culture. Multi-faceted and colourful, Lam's work proudly displays a thousand faces, in a bewildering variety, full of fervour, teeming with creative instinct. His gesture breaks down and dismantles the subjects of his paintings to make room for a new pictoriality where the plastic aspect of the elements is set aside. The viewer's imagination nevertheless manages to conjure up new ensembles, thanks to shapes inspired by nature that the artist holds dear. In his lyrical conception, Wifredo Lam is nonetheless a classical artist, as evidenced by Untitled, painted in 1964. His style was strengthened in the 1960s through incisive lines drawn on the canvas, featuring taut curves, sharp reliefs, deep and sustained colours, as well as a sure and powerful movement. Between 1964 and 1965, Wifredo Lam perfected this painting style, characterised by many nuances as well as technicality.
During this period, he divided his time between Albisola Mare, in Liguria, where he had a new studio built, and Paris, where he spent the other half of his time. During this decade, Lam became increasingly interested in engraving and collaborated with poets and writers such as René Char, Alain Jouffroy and Aimé Césaire. He also met the master engraver Giorgio Upiglio in Milan, an encounter that inspired Lam to develop his creativity.
As presented on this canvas, the painted faces deeply humanise Lam's work. His unique style was recognised by the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1964 and he received their International Award. Without ever neglecting surrounding reality, Wifredo Lam was inspired by people and nature. Far from the political and philosophical considerations imposed by the Surrealists of his time, but without detaching himself from them, Lam appears as a link between cultures, nature and art with people. His subjects even gradually become celestial creatures, half-angels and half-volatiles, looking down with a thoughtful and benevolent air on the artist's paintings. These angelic beings communicate with the viewer, not by means of speech, as they often have no mouths, but by their expressions. Rarely are the bodies fully revealed. But this does not matter, because Lam's paintings speak clearly to those who admire and contemplate them. While the subject in the foreground of Untitled, 1964, seems to stare at the viewer with a melancholic air, his hybrid companion in the background indicates a direction by spreading his wing, towards a space outside the canvas. Speech is no longer the order of the day, but the silence thus imposed is no less evocative of meaning, multiple and gives free rein to the viewer's interpretation, thus opening the way to a dialogue, an inner conversation. Under the influence of Wifredo Lam, the Surrealist pictorial space has become a venue of meeting and reconciliation between people and their cultures, where his subjects with their hieratic expressions testify, through the proximity that his paintings give to the spectators, to a gentleness filled with humanity.
À l’instar de cette toile, les visages peints humanisent profondément l’œuvre de Lam. Son style singulier est consacré par le Guggenheim Museum de New York en 1964 qui lui remet son International Award. Wifredo Lam s’inspire des hommes et de la nature, sans jamais négliger la réalité environnante. Loin de toute considération politique et philosophique qu’imposent les surréalistes de son temps, sans pour autant s’en détacher, Lam apparaît alors comme un trait d’union entre les cultures, la nature et l’art avec les hommes. Ses sujets deviennent même petit à petit des créatures célestes, mi-anges mi-volatiles, surplombant d’un air pensif et bienveillant les peintures de l’artiste. Ces créatures angéliques communiquent avec le spectateur, non par le moyen de la parole car souvent dénuées de bouches mais bien par leurs expressions. Rares sont les fois d’ailleurs où les corps sont entièrement révélés. Mais qu’importe puisque les toiles de Lam s’adressent de façon claire et évidente à qui les admire et les contemple. Lorsque le sujet du premier plan dans Sans titre, 1964 semble fixer le spectateur d’un air mélancolique, son compagnon hybride en arrière-plan, quant à lui, paraît indiquer une direction en déployant son aile, vers un espace hors de la toile. La parole n’est plus de mise mais le silence ainsi imposé n’en est pas moins évocateur de sens, multiple et ouvert à l’interprétation du spectateur, ouvrant ainsi la voie à un dialogue, une conversation intérieure. Sous l’influence de Wifredo Lam, l’espace pictural surréaliste est devenu un lieu de rencontre et de réconciliation entre les hommes et leurs cultures, où ses sujets aux expressions hiératiques témoignent, par la proximité que ses toiles donnent aux spectateurs, d’une douceur emplie d’humanité.
Under the wing of Picasso and having lived in Paris from 1938 until 1941, Wifredo Lam drew his inspiration from his mixed lineage: Cuban by birth, Chinese by his father and African/Spanish by his mother. His painting is a powerful link between the primitive and native forces of America, where creative energies of Afro-Asian origins are combined with Western culture. Multi-faceted and colourful, Lam's work proudly displays a thousand faces, in a bewildering variety, full of fervour, teeming with creative instinct. His gesture breaks down and dismantles the subjects of his paintings to make room for a new pictoriality where the plastic aspect of the elements is set aside. The viewer's imagination nevertheless manages to conjure up new ensembles, thanks to shapes inspired by nature that the artist holds dear. In his lyrical conception, Wifredo Lam is nonetheless a classical artist, as evidenced by Untitled, painted in 1964. His style was strengthened in the 1960s through incisive lines drawn on the canvas, featuring taut curves, sharp reliefs, deep and sustained colours, as well as a sure and powerful movement. Between 1964 and 1965, Wifredo Lam perfected this painting style, characterised by many nuances as well as technicality.
During this period, he divided his time between Albisola Mare, in Liguria, where he had a new studio built, and Paris, where he spent the other half of his time. During this decade, Lam became increasingly interested in engraving and collaborated with poets and writers such as René Char, Alain Jouffroy and Aimé Césaire. He also met the master engraver Giorgio Upiglio in Milan, an encounter that inspired Lam to develop his creativity.
As presented on this canvas, the painted faces deeply humanise Lam's work. His unique style was recognised by the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1964 and he received their International Award. Without ever neglecting surrounding reality, Wifredo Lam was inspired by people and nature. Far from the political and philosophical considerations imposed by the Surrealists of his time, but without detaching himself from them, Lam appears as a link between cultures, nature and art with people. His subjects even gradually become celestial creatures, half-angels and half-volatiles, looking down with a thoughtful and benevolent air on the artist's paintings. These angelic beings communicate with the viewer, not by means of speech, as they often have no mouths, but by their expressions. Rarely are the bodies fully revealed. But this does not matter, because Lam's paintings speak clearly to those who admire and contemplate them. While the subject in the foreground of Untitled, 1964, seems to stare at the viewer with a melancholic air, his hybrid companion in the background indicates a direction by spreading his wing, towards a space outside the canvas. Speech is no longer the order of the day, but the silence thus imposed is no less evocative of meaning, multiple and gives free rein to the viewer's interpretation, thus opening the way to a dialogue, an inner conversation. Under the influence of Wifredo Lam, the Surrealist pictorial space has become a venue of meeting and reconciliation between people and their cultures, where his subjects with their hieratic expressions testify, through the proximity that his paintings give to the spectators, to a gentleness filled with humanity.