Wifredo Lam *

(Sagua la Grande, Cuba 1902–1982 Paris)
L’Oiseau Flamme, 1973, signed and dated on the reverse, oil on canvas, 50 x 70 cm, framed
This work is accompanied by a photo certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.

Provenance:
Galleria Nuovo Sagittario, Milan (label on the reverse)
European Private Collection (acquired from the above)

Exhibited:
Milan, Wifredo Lam: Opere Scelte, Galleria Nuovo Sagittario, 1975, exhib. cat. no. 2 with ill.
Rome, Wifredo Lam, Galleria d’Arte La Borgognona, 14 February – 15 March 1976, exhib. cat. with ill.
Milan, Wifredo Lam. Opere Scelte dal 1945, Galleria Nuovo Sagittario, 1982, exhib. cat. with ill.

Literature:
L. Lam and E. Lam (eds.), Catalogue Raisonné of the Painted Work 1961–1982, Acatos, Lausanne 2002, vol. II, p. 395, no. 73.20 with ill. (inverted image)

In this painting by Wifredo Lam, Surrealism leaves the realm of mental constructs and returns to earth - to ritual and an archaic dimension. The work is characterized by a strongly tribal, primitivist visual language in which Afro-Cuban heritage takes shape as a sharply defined graphic symbol.
We are immersed in the cultural universe of Santería, within an aesthetic that intertwines the human, the animal, and the machine. The silhouette that cuts through the red of the surface – is it a rocket, an arrow, a ritual object? – it succinctly expresses the tension in Lam’s work between the speed of the future and the immobility of eternal myth. It is an art that does not seek to please, but rather to evoke presence – a modern totem that speaks of identity and of a spiritual force that cannot be tamed.