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 Herv� T�l�maque (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.

Jos� 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 Segu� (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 Herv� T�l�maque's work, with its strong sense of "n�gritude"). 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 Agust�n 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.

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