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.
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Inscription: Signed and dated (lower right): Wifredo Lam / 5/ 42
Pierre Matisse, New York (1942–d. 1989; acquired from the artist on September 14, 1942; stock no. 1289); his widow, Maria-Gaetana Matisse, née von Spreti, New York (1989–d. 2001); Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Foundation (2002; gift to MMA)
New York. Pierre Matisse Gallery. "Wifredo Lam. Early Works, 1942 to 1951: Paintings, Gouaches, Watercolors, and Drawings," June 1–26, 1982, no. 21 (as "Déesse avec feuillage").
New York. Studio Museum in Harlem. "Wifredo Lam and His Contemporaries 1938–1952," December 6, 1992–April 11, 1993, no. 13 (as "Déesse avec feuillage," lent by a private collection).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Collection," May 18, 2004–June 26, 2005, no catalogue (checklist no. 21; as "Goddess with Leaves").
Max-Pol Fouchet. Wifredo Lam. New York, 1976, p. 257, fig. 333, calls it "Figure".
Max-Pol Fouchet. Wifredo Lam. 2nd ed. (1st ed., 1976). Paris, 1989, p. 277, fig. 365, calls it "Figure".
Lowery Stokes Sims inWifredo Lam and His Contemporaries 1938–1952. Ed. Maria R. Balderrama. Exh. cat., Studio Museum in Harlem. New York, 1992, p. 72.
Julia P. Herzberg inWifredo Lam and His Contemporaries 1938–1952. Ed. Maria R. Balderrama. Exh. cat., Studio Museum in Harlem. New York, 1992, pp. 33, 35, 50 n. 24, p. 99, no. 13, ill. p. 110 (color).
Lou Laurin-Lam. Wifredo Lam: Catalogue raisonné of the Painted Work. Vol. 1, 1923–1960. Lausanne, 1996, p. 296, no. 42.20, ill., calls it "Déesse avec feuillage".
Sabine Rewald in "Selections from the Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Collection." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 61 (Spring 2004), p. 23, ill. (color).
Holland Cotter. "Matisse the Son, Illuminating His Father's Legacy." New York Times (2004), pp. E25, E28, ill., calls it "Goddess with Leaves".
Lowery Stokes Sims. "The Post-modern Modernism of Wifredo Lam." Cosmopolitan Modernisms. Ed. Kobena Mercer. London, 2005, pp. 90, 190, ill. p. 91 (color), calls it "Déesse avec foliage (Jungle Goddess/Goddess with Foliage)".
Sabine Rewald. The American Matisse: The Dealer, His Artists, His Collection. The Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Collection. New York, 2009, pp. 65–66, 67 n. 4, p. 155, ill. (color).
Jacques Leenhardt. Wifredo Lam. [Paris], 2009, ill. p. 91 (color), calls it "Déesse avec feuillage".
Peggy Bonnet Vergara. Wifredo Lam et l'éternel féminin. Paris, 2015, p. 80, calls it "Déesse avec feuillage".
Kobena Mercer inThe Ey Exhibition: Wifredo Lam. Ed. Catherine David. Exh. cat., Centre Pompidou, Musée national d'art moderne, Paris. London, 2016, p. 24, calls it "Déese avec feuillage (Goddess with Foliage)".
Lowery Stokes Sims inThe Ey Exhibition: Wifredo Lam. Ed. Catherine David. Exh. cat., Centre Pompidou, Musée national d'art moderne, Paris. London, 2016, p. 196 [reprints Ref. Sims 2005].
Max Hollein. Modern and Contemporary Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2019, ill. p. 90 (color).
Kaira M. Cabañas et al. Wifredo Lam: The Imagination at Work. Exh. cat., Pace Gallery. New York, 2022, p. 170, ill. p. 53 (color), call it "Déesse avec feuillage".
Wifredo Lam (Cuban, Sagua La Grande 1902–1982 Paris)
20th century
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