Timeline

Date

Event

1902

Wifredo Óscar de la Concepción Lam y Castilla is born on December 8 in Sagua La Grande. This is a village in the sugar farming province of Villa Clara, Cuba. He was the youngest of eight children. Lam’s mother, the former Ana Serafina Castilla, was born to a Congolese former slave mother and a Cuban mulatto father. Lam’s father, Yam Lam, was a Chinese immigrant.

1916

Lam is sent to Havana, his first experience in a bustling city. His family hoped he would pursue a career in law, but instead Lam spent his time strolling through the city’s Fine Arts museum, established in 1913.

1918

He enrolls in the Escuela Profesional de Pintura of San Alejandro with the intention of studying sculpture but soon found the stonework too strenuous. Lam becomes the painting student of the instructors Leopoldo Romanach and Armando G. Menocal.

1920

In June, Lam becomes a member of the Association of Painters and Sculptors of Havana.

1923

He exhibits his first paintings at the Fine Arts Salon of Havana. After this, he was invited to present his work in his hometown of Sagua La Grande. Lam decides to pursue painting by furthering his education in Europe, and the director of the Museo Nacional de la Habana, Antonio Rodriquez Morey, provides him with a letter of recommendation. This gave Lam access to Madrid's high society.

Lam arrives in Spain. Thanks to the letter of recommendation, he comes into contact with the Director of the Prado, Fernando Álvarez de Sotomayor, who is an official portraitist of noble birth and a professor at the Real Academia de Bella Artes. He invites Lam to study at the academy. This introduces the young painter to a new artistic climate.

1926

He paints Nu.

1929

A large exhibition of Spanish painters living in Paris is held at Madrid's botanical gardens with the sculptors Apeles Fenosa and Pablo Gargello, the painters Juan Gris, Manuel Angel Ortiz, Pablo Picasso and Pedro Pruna. This greatly inspires Lam.

Lam marries Eva Piriz; she and their young son later die of tuberculosis in 1931.

1930

He paints Composición I.

1931

Lam and his friend Anselmo Carretero make a trip to León, a mountainous region in the northwest of Spain where they befriend a small group of local artists.

1935

He spends the summer in Malaga . This is a small Andalusian seaside resort, It was birthplace of Picasso . Lam travels with Balbina Barrera, a fellow painter, and her six children.

Lam paints La Ventana II.

1937

In September, Lam settles in Barcelona where he comes into contact with a much more dynamic artistic community than in the capital.

Lam paints La Guerra civil.

1938

Decides to move to Paris. There he meets with Pablo Picasso and is captivated by Picasso’s collection of African art. Picasso introduces Lam to Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, and others.

He paints Nature morte and Figrures, among other works.

1939

Lam has his first art exhibition at the Galerie Pierre Loeb, owned by the Parisian art dealer named Pierre Loeb who Lam met through Picasso.

1940

After the outbreak of World War II and the invasion of Nazis in Paris, Lam fled to Marseilles. Several members of the Surrealist group had also fled here so Lam made new acquaintances.

1941

Lam is imprisoned for forty days after leaving for Martinique with André Breton and Claude Lévi-Strauss; Lam returns to Cuba after being released.

1942

He paints Sans Titre, Déesse avec feuillage, and Le Roi de bilboquet.

1943

He begins one of his best-known works, The Jungle, which is later purchased by the Museum of Modern Art and is in conversation with Picasso’s Guernica.

1944

Lam marries Helana Holzer, a German researcher. They divorced in 1950.

1946

He and Breton spend four months in Haiti where Lam comes into contact with Voodooism.

1950

Lam paints La Rumeur de la terre.

1952

Lam settles in Paris once more; paints Maternité III.

1955

He exhibits a series of paintings at Havana University to demonstrate his support for the students’ protests against Batista’s dictatorship.

1960

Lam establishes a studio in Albissola Marina on Italy's northwest coast and settles there with his wife Lou Laurin, a Swedish painter, and their three sons.

1964

He is awarded the Guggenheim International Award.

1966-67

Many retrospective exhibitions of Lam’s work occur throughout Europe.

1968

He paints Horizons chauds.

1970

He paints Les Abalochas dansent pour Dhambala, dieu de l’unité.

1975

Lam has his first exhibition of ceramics.

1982

Lam died on September 11 in Paris. Lam had over one hundred solo exhibitions during his life.