Wifredo Lam (1902-1982)

Sale: Loudmer Scp, Importants Tableaux Modernes et Sculptures, November 19, 1989, lot 54
CDS Gallery, New York

New York, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Wifredo Lam and his Contemporaries 1938-1952, 1992, p. 128, n. 52, illustrated in color
Coral Gables, Gary Nader Fine Art, Wifredo Lam: A tribute, 1993, illustrated in color

Lou Laurin-Lam, Wifredo Lam: Catalogue Raisonné of the Painted Work, Volume I, 1923-1960, Lausanne, 1996, p. 438, n. 51.04, illustrated

This painting is in beautiful condition and should be hung as is. The canvas is not lined although the tacking edges have been reinforced with a synthetic adhesive. There are no retouches and the picture should be hung as is. (This condition report has been provided courtesy of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.)
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

This 1951 painting demonstrated the many guises in which Lam's "femme cheval" figure appeared that transformed her into a vehicle a great virtuosity and variation in his work. La Femme magique is distinct from her relatives of the early 1940s and represents distinct developments in Lam's work over all in the late 1940s. While Lam frequently painted his early "femme chevals" in warm earth tones, here the palette is more strictly held to browns, blacks and beiges with some tinges of yellow and orange. Also where the femme chevals of the earlier 1940s are more cubistic in quality with multiple and overlapping, fractured but volumetric planes, by the late 1940s the figural elements have become flatter. As seen here the single femme cheval, invariably seen in ¾ length retains an "Egypt-izing" presentation of the head in profile, the upper torso and shoulder frontally and the lower torso in profile again.

This femme cheval has a trumpet-shaped head—one of many versions including elongated horse snouts, ovals and circles—with three protruding spiney elements that replace features. Her head is surmounted by another circular head and she sports horns. Such elements have been seen variously as retrospective references to the mantillas and combs worn by the women whose portraits Lam did in Spain in the 1920s and as avatars of Yoruba deities who manifest through the head.

It is interesting that many of these elements can be seen as early as 1940-41 in the suite of drawings that Lam did in Marseilles which formed the basis of his signature style. In what has by now become a familiar compositional element in Lam's work another shadowy figure looms behind the femme cheval. Both shadow and doppelganger it can be seen as a reference to a dream experience from Lam's youth as well as an intimation of racial origins that haunt those who would hide their genetic roots. Given the extraordinary mixtures among Europeans, Africans and Indians that have occurred in the Americas since their first encounters, this is pertinent reading. In the final analysis, however, it may just be yet another representation of the other dimensions of reality that coexist with that of the empirical world or an avatar of the female as devotee of the Afro-Cuban religion.

Lowery Stokes Sims