Rare Wifredo Lam Portrait Lands in New York
The Hispanic Society Museum and Library in New York has acquired Wifredo Lam’s Portrait of a Boy (1927), marking the first painting by a Cuban artist to enter the institution’s permanent collection. Director and CEO Guillaume Kientz told Hyperallergic he had never seen the work before it resurfaced from a private collection in Cuenca, Spain, appearing late last year in Sotheby’s Modern Day Auction. The painting includes the inscription “para Hugo,” indicating it was a gift for Hugo Dosantos, according to provenance information. The article contextualizes the work within Lam’s early years after he received a government grant to study in Madrid in 1923, lost that scholarship in 1925 following the election of Cuban president General Machado, and then supported himself through portrait commissions while spending formative summers in Cuenca.
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