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Goddess with Foliage

1942
Not on view
Combining human, vegetal, and animal elements, Lam’s large figure features pointed ears, a horse’s snout, fruit-shaped breasts, and pronounced hands. The artist studied and synthesized African art, Cubism, and Surrealism while working for eighteen years in Europe, first in Spain and later in Paris, where he befriended Pablo Picasso and poet André Breton, Surrealism’s founder. The stylistic hybridity of Lam’s art parallels his mixed ethnicity: his father was Chinese and his mother descended from a formerly enslaved Congolese mother and a father with indigenous Cuban and Spanish ancestry. Through his art, Lam sought to promote and sustain modern Afro-Cuban culture, which he feared was being corrupted by tourism and suppressed by the government.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Goddess with Foliage
  • Artist: Wifredo Lam (Cuban, Sagua La Grande 1902–1982 Paris)
  • Date: 1942
  • Medium: Opaque watercolor on paper
  • Dimensions: 41 1/2 × 33 1/2 in. (105.4 × 85.1 cm)
  • Classification: Drawings
  • Credit Line: The Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Collection, 2002
  • Object Number: 2002.456.32
  • Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

More Artwork

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Untitled, Wifredo Lam Cuban, Seven etching and aquatint prints
Untitled
Wifredo Lam
XXe Siècle
1979
Study for "The Secret", Wifredo Lam Cuban, Pen and ink and watercolor with graphite on paper
Study for "The Secret"
Wifredo Lam
ca. 1947
Untitled Abstraction with Figures, Wifredo Lam Cuban, Color etching, aqautint
Untitled Abstraction with Figures
Wifredo Lam
20th century
Returned to lender
Rumblings of the Earth (Rumor de la tierra)
Wifredo Lam
1950
Le présent éternel (Hommage à Alejandro García Caturla) (The Eternal Present [Homage to Alejandro García Caturla]), also known as The Eternal Presence, Wifredo Lam Cuban, Oil and pastel over papier-mâché and chalk ground on bast fiber fabric
Returned to lender
Le présent éternel (Hommage à Alejandro García Caturla) (The Eternal Present [Homage to Alejandro García Caturla]), also known as The Eternal Presence
Wifredo Lam
1944

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