Retrato (Portrait)

Wifredo Lam’s interest in portraiture dates to the years that he spent in Spain between 1923 and 1938, a period marked by poverty and the horrors of the Civil War. Renderings of his wife, Eva Piriz, and their child, both of whom died of tuberculosis in 1931, appear in a series of portraits from the mid-1930s, in which the use of grim colors and thick outlines reflect the artist’s sorrow. "Retrato" recalls the strong outlines and dark fields of colors seen in these earlier portraits, whose subjects are portrayed with the same frontality and austerity. The dark skin tone of the figure and the oval, mask-like face with facial features barely indicated, suggest Lam’s responsiveness both to traditional African carving, which he discovered in Paris, and to his own Afro-Cuban heritage. A late-career work, this lithograph reflects back on Lam’s transatlantic encounters as well as his prolonged engagement with monumental female subjects, from the early maternal portraits to the hybrid femmes-cheval (horse-headed women) figures that have defined his work.

This text was created in collaboration with the University of Maryland Department of Art History & Archaeology and written by Patricia Ortega-Miranda.