Wifredo Lam in North America
February 8 – May 18, 2008
Upper Level Gallery

Miami Art Museum is proud to host the first large-scale solo exhibition of the work of Wifredo Lam ever to be presented in a South Florida museum. The most celebrated Cuban artist of the 20th century, Lam traveled to Spain in the 1920s and later moved to France, where he became closely acquainted with Pablo Picasso and the leading figures of the Surrealist movement. In 1941, he fled the war in Europe and returned to Cuba, where he rediscovered the Afro-Caribbean myths, art forms and religious practices that had influenced his early childhood. Lam hybridized
mainstream European Modernism with these non-Western traditions and used the unique visual language that resulted to raise questions of social injustice and redemption. In the process, he reasserted the vibrant heritage of
the African Diaspora, while formulating a poetic intercultural dialogue that remains relevant to this day.

Wifredo Lam, Study for “The Jungle,” 1943. Oil on paper mounted on canvas, Collection of Sergio and Christine Delgado. Image courtesy of the lenders and ©2007 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris.

The exhibition Is organized by the Patrick and Beatrice Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its presentation in Miami is curated by MAM Associate Curator René Morales. The exhibition was planned during the tenure of MAM Founding Director Suzanne Delehanty.

Major corporate support is provided by Merrill Lynch. Wifredo Lam Education Programs at MAM are supported by Darden Restaurants Foundation.

Additional support is provided by Amy Dean & Alan J. Kluger, the Fana Holtz Foundation, Sotheby’s, and MAM‘s Annual Exhibition Fund.