Antony Penrose – Totemic Friends: Wifredo Lam, Roland Penrose and other fellow travellers

WIFREDO
NOUVEAU NOUVEAU MONDE
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Wifredo Lam, Roland
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Totemic friends
Penrose and other fellow travellers
Antony Penrose
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Totemic friends.
Wifredo Lam, Roland Penrose and other fellow travellers
Antony Penrose
Wifredo Lam’s life was populated by many of the key figures from the world
of modern art. He counted Picasso, Braque, Miró, Breton, Éluard, Lorca,
and Neruda, among his friends. He became well known to important dealers
like Pierre Loeb, Pierre Matisse, and it was Alfred Barr who purchased his
seminal work La Jungla 1943 (The Jungle) for the Museum of Modern Art in
New York. These big figures and others like them are frequently remembered
for recognising Lam’s talent, supporting him and sometimes, as with Picasso,
influencing him artistically. But there are others. They are shadowy, like the
mysterious figures that frequently occur in the background of some of Lam’s
works, and their names are seldom mentioned in the biographies. Despite
this omission, they were important to Lam who valued their friendship, their
understanding and their support. Roland Penrose was my father and he was
among those who stood firmly behind Lam, encouraging and facilitating
him in a friendship that lasted until Lam’s death in 1982.
Penrose would have heard of Lam from Breton in the 1920s and although
their first significant meeting was almost certainly in New York in July 1946,
they shared many friendships and more importantly, they shared deeply
held commitments. Lam, growing up in the time of the savagely repressive
regimes of Cuba, had a profound understanding of the value of peace,
freedom and justice. Penrose shared these beliefs but did not acquire them
in the same way. He was born into a family of wealthy Quakers, and he
emerged with a strong adherence to the causes of peace, freedom and justice
as the guiding principles of his life. These principles guided the Surrealists,
of whom Penrose was one who readily understood the position art holds as
a means of communicating these sacred values.
Both artists had become acquainted with Surrealism in the mid 1920s.
Penrose had gone to Paris as a young painter, and had had the good fortune
to meet Paul Éluard and André Breton, an introduction that led him to
close friendships with Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Man Ray and later Pablo
Picasso. Penrose, like most of the other surrealists, saw Surrealism as being
far more than an art movement. It was a way of life that demanded action
when faced with the gross injustice of the Spanish Civil War. Penrose as a
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Antony Penrose
Quaker would not take up arms but he went to Barcelona to report on the
way the Republican forces were acting responsibly towards the nation’s art
and historical treasures as a counter to the propaganda in the British press.
Lam, like Miró and others began designing posters for the Republicans.
Then he worked in a munitions factory until prolonged exposure to the
toxic chemicals made him seriously ill. For them both, action was more
important than words.
In about 1938 it was Lam who was the first to become a firm friend of
Picasso whose own affinity for African art helped fuel his passion for Lam’s
work. For Lam, Picasso’s encouragement was to be vital and later he spoke
of how Picasso had not only influenced his pictorial work but reinforced the
importance of art as a vehicle for political statement. Penrose did not meet
Picasso until 1936, the same year he curated the first International Surrealist
Exhibition in London, but my supposition is that, through Breton, he had
seen some of Lam’s work although there is no evidence any was included in
the 1936 London show. However, the installation photographs show there
were many ethnographic works from African and Oceania, which reminds
us of the strong affinity held by the Surrealists and Picasso for tribal art.
African art had been forbidden in the Antilles under the oppression of
slavery, and was derided by many as the work of primitive savages. Lam
must have found the Surrealist’s passion for it wonderfully affirming.
It was ten years later that Penrose and Lam were to meet. Both had survived
the brutal dangers and disruptions of the war, and were fleetingly in New York.
Lam was on his way to Paris via London. Penrose was there accompanying
his future wife, Lee Miller, the surrealist photographer who had been the
lover and student of Man Ray. Vogue had given her a celebrity reception in
New York following her unique achievements as a combat photojournalist
during the war. They met their friend Rosamund Bernier, Vogue’s newly
appointed fashion correspondent. Penrose wrote: “The day we met her in
57 th Street the elegance of her hat and dress made an amusing contrast
with her shy companion, Wifredo Lam, the Cuban painter whom we all
three knew slightly and whom she was at pains to protect from his own
race-conscious torments.” 1 Bernier later recalled Lam as being diffident and
wonderfully vague, an innocent, unworldly soul with nothing calculating
in his nature. 2
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Invitation card
for the first exhibition of
Wifredo Lam works held
in London,
organized by E.L.T.
Mesens for the London
Gallery Bookshop
in 1946
Wifredo Lam
biography excerpt
from the exhibition
guide, Institute
of Contemporary Arts,
London 1952
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Antony Penrose
Catalogue of the exhibition “Forty Years of Modern Art, 1907-1947,” Institute of Contemporary Arts,
London 1948
101

There was an instant rapport between the four of them. In 1946 New York
was an inhospitable place for a Cuban with mixed Afro-Caribbean and
Chinese race to be. It seemed there was nowhere they could go to socialise
without an ugly confrontation, until Bernier hit on the idea of taking Lam
to a Chinese restaurant. They conversed in Spanish, Lam’s mother tongue,
in which Bernier was fluent and all spoke French, but charmingly Lam
never assumed others spoke his languages. Years later he turned to Bernier
and said in Spanish, “You understand Spanish, don’t you?”
The affectionate friendship continued, very much under the wing of Penrose
and Miller. Years later Bernier was working in Paris and Lam had married
Lou Laurin-Lam and was living in a Paris suburb. He urged her to visit him.
She recounted “I went. He still spoke Spanish. I asked to meet his children.
They were brought in and were very bonny. What are their names? I asked.
A look of total confusion came over him. He looked at his wife. ‘What are
their names?’ he asked her.” 3
The New York meeting was a good beginning. Penrose, with determined
optimism amid Britain’s post war bleakness had just reopened The London
Gallery at 23 Brook Street. As before the war, the manager was the Belgian
E. L. T. Mesens who had already connected with Lam, probably through
his friendship with Breton. With remarkable speed and co-ordination an
exhibition of Lam’s work opened at the London Gallery on 5 th November
and ran to 30 th4 , supported by Peter Watson, the editor of Horizon art and
literary review. It seems that there were a mix of works on canvas at £200
each and a large number of works on paper in both ink and wash at £10 each.
The drawings were mainly the result of Lam’s stay in Haiti the previous year.
Breton, who was there attending the inauguration of Haiti’s French Institute
collaborated in the titling of some of the works. A substantial illustrated
catalogue was planned with a text by Lam’s old friend Aimé Césaire. 5
Miller photographed Lam seated next to a Max Ernst chess set, the pieces
resembling objects that might have come from a voodoo ritual, and then
standing shyly beside his 1945 painting Le Sacré, hung on a stark expanse of
wall. She bought the work and for many years had it in her study at Farley
Farm House where it was much loved and seemed perfectly at home amid
the clutter of her cook books and found objects.
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Antony Penrose
Michel Leiris, Wifredo Lam and Roland Penrose, Cuba 1967
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Penrose bought two pen and ink works from the Haiti series of drawings 6 , but
a more intimate portrait was to follow. At my parent’s home, 21 Downshire
Hill, Hampstead, Lam met the distinguished journalist Kathleen McColgan
who had reported for the Irish press on The Spanish Civil War. Kathleen
was sketched by Lam as a slightly demure female devil. She had lived with
my parents for most of the war. They recalled that her great intelligence,
eloquence and compassion was matched by her fondness for Irish whiskey,
and felt Lam had captured her perfectly.
The following May, Lam wrote alerting Penrose to the imminent arrival of
the 50 Cuban cigars and a bottle of rum he had sent by sea and referring
to Penrose’s book the Road Is Wider Than Long. Published by The London
Gallery in 1939 it was described by Penrose as “an image diary from the
Balkans,” a poem illustrated with Penrose’s photographs and collages
recording his travels with Lee Miller in 1938. Lam wrote “We have really
loved it. It is very, very good. We thought that if you ever made a similar
thing in Cuba, it would be marvellous. Here magic vibrates throughout the
island and there are some absolutely extraordinary ‘Maritzas’.” 7
A show at the ICA which Penrose had co-founded with Herbert Read
followed in 1952. Embarrassment was avoided by Peter Watson who pointed
out to the less well informed members of the committee that since Lam had
been forced to flee the regime, the Cuban Ambassador would not be a good
choice of a celebrity to open the show.
I don’t know how many later meetings there were. Lam’s peripatetic life style
made him hard to keep track of, but there are several New Year’s greetings
on post cards that show he never forgot my parents, and of course the huge
number of friends they had in common made it possible for them to keep
up with each other’s news.
In 1963 Lam returned to Cuba and was welcomed enthusiastically by
Castro’s government. He was soon involved in a major state project, a Salon
of contemporary art which would involve the making of a huge collective
mural. Fidel Castro, in his effort to gain international legitimacy was seeking
the backing of leftist artists and intellectuals from all over the world. … The
one hundred artists selected by Wifredo and Lou Laurin-Lam were all invited
by the Cuban government. 8 Lam was there to welcome the delegates, one of
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Antony Penrose
whom was Penrose. Typically, Penrose was more impressed by a 2,000 year
old Cuban tree than the political manipulations. Suddenly in the middle of a
gathering Castro would arrive in jeep. He would stride around shaking hands
and then disappear just as quickly. Anti-aircraft guns were positioned in the
public places. It was all for show –they were sited in positions that would have
been useless in an attack. But the island itself was wonderful. The buildings
were jaded and dilapidated but it was lush and humid, everywhere overflowing
with beautiful plants and trees. It was easy to see how the marvels of nature had
become so much a part Wifredo’s work. 9
The mural is about 20 x 8 metres. The delegates ascended unsafe looking
scaffolding, several painting simultaneously. It remains today, with Penrose’s
painted segment forming one part of the spiral design, a metaphor for his
small contribution to the far bigger picture of art and world affairs in which
we now see Lam’s work achieving the recognition it so richly deserves. It
also reminds us of the way enduring friendships facilitated so much of the
development of art in the twentieth century.
1
Roland Penrose Scrap Book Thames & Hudson 1981 p. 224
2
Rosamund Bernier in conversation and e mails with the author, August 2013.
3
Ibid
4
Coll. National Galleries of Scotland, Roland Penrose Archive, Modern Art 1, Edinburgh.
5
Letters in the E.L.T. Mesens collection, JP Getty Archive, Los Angeles.
6
Composition, title unknown, unsigned. Pen and ink, dated 10-1-46 and Composition, titled Haiti,
unsigned. Pen and ink, dated 14-1-46. No longer in The Penrose Collection.
7
Lam to Penrose from Havana 1 May 1947. Coll. National Galleries of Scotland, Roland Penrose Archive,
Modern Art 1, Edinburgh. Translated from the French by the author. Maritza was a Romanian folk singer
featured in Penrose’s poem.
8
Anne Egger (Translated by Unity Woodman) ©2011 – 2012 SDO Wifredo Lam. Realisation, Jonas Lam.
www.wifredolam.net
9
Roland Penrose in conversation with the author c.1967.
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Credits
© documentary photos SDO The Estate of Wifredo Lam
© Archives Loeb (p.28)
© Perls Galleries (p. 30)
© UNESCO (p. 31)
Chillida Archives (p. 41)
© Graham Foundation
© The Irving Penn Foundation (p. 49)
© Published with the graceful permission of Marie-Claude Char (p. 57)
© Éditions du Sagittaire (p. 57, 265)
© Nouvelles Éditions Place, Paris (p. 74)
© Austrian Frederick and Lilian Kiesler Private Foundation, Vienna (p. 75, 89)
© John and Trude Schiff papers, courtesy Leo Baeck Institute (p. 76)
© Fondation Marguerite et Aimé Maeght (p. 89)
© Revista Revolución y Cultura, Havana (p. 91–95)
ICA Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (p. 100, 101, 113)
© Lee Miller Archives, Chiddingly, East Sussex, 2012. All rights reserved (p. 110, 111)
Courtesy Fondazione Piero Manzoni, Milan (p. 126, 131, 132, 133, 134 )
Courtesy Casa Museo Asger Jorn, Albissola Marina (p. 127, 136)
Courtesy Comune di Albissola Marina / Comune di Albissola Marina (ph. Gianluca Anselmo) (p. 121, 132)
Courtesy Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid / Foto: Joaquín Cortés / Román Lores
(p. 148-149, 154-155, 160-161, 178-179, 206-207, 220-221)
Courtesy Bibliothèque et Archives Canada / e000756917 (p. 200)
© Bill Cotter, WorldsFairPhotos.com (p. 201)
© association Atelier André Breton, www.andrebreton.fr
© ProLitteris for the artworks by Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Wifredo Lam
Despite a thorough research, not all copyright holders could be identified. Should you be the owner of
the copyright or related rights to the illustrations published in this book, please contact the gallery.
338

Concept
Krystyna Gmurzynska, Mathias Rastorfer
Coordination
Alessandra Consonni
Texts by
Eskil Lam
Alain Jouffroy
Professor Luca Bochicchio, University of Genova
Professor Dawn Adès
Monsieur le Ministre Dominique de Villepin
Dorota Dolega-Ritter, Associate Director of the Wifredo Lam Archive
Adrian Clark
Antony Penrose, director of the Lee Miller Archive and Penrose Collection
Jacques Leenhardt, Directeur d’Études at School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Paris
Quote: ‘My Painting is an Act of Decolonization’
an Interview with Wifredo Lam by Gerardo Mosquera (1980)
Jean-Louis Paudrat
© galerie gmurzynska 2018
Printed by Grafiche Step, Parma, Italy
galerie gmurzynska
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