Latin Americans in Paris

For my third and last post on the lithographs published by Situationist Times in 1967, I’d like to look at the surprising number of artists from Latin America who were involved. At a guess, this reflects the influence of the Haitian artist Hervé Télémaque (see previous post), who was a very active mover and shaker on the Paris avant-garde scene, though the list of artists also includes two giants from an earlier generation, the Surrealists Wifredo Lam and Roberto Matta.

José Gamarra (Uraguayan, 1934- )

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Mariano Hernandez (Spanish/Argentinian, 1928- )

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Wifredo Lam (Cuban, 1902-1982)

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Wifredo Lam

Surrealist composition

Lithograph, 1979

Lea Lublin (Argentinian, 1929-1999)

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Alejandro Marcos (Spanish/Argentinian, 1937- )

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Cristina Martinez (Argentinian, 1938- )

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Roberto Matta (Chilean, 1911-2002)

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Roberto Matta

Musicians

Lithograph, 1979

Antonio Seguí (Argentinian, 1934- )

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1967

Jack Vanarsky (Argentinian, 1936- )

Untitled composition

Lithograph, 1936

There is vivid colour, here, to be sure, and echoes of South American folk art. But there's also a note of protest (also present in Hervé Télémaque's work, with its strong sense of "négritude"). It's interesting to note how strongly and immediately Latin American artists were drawn to Surrealism. Cuban Wifredo Lam's grandmother was a voodoo priestess, and he fitted naturally into a surrealist state-of-mind, but there were at least two other significant Cuban Surrealists, Joachin Ferrer and Agustín Fernandez. Roll on a few years, and the immediacy and vibrancy of Pop Art was the obvious home for the Latin American artists of the next generation.