Wifredo Lam's artistic journey represents one of the most dramatic transformations in modern art history. When the young Cuban painter arrived in Spain in 1923 at just 21 years old, he carried with him the refined techniques of classical portraiture. Yet by 1937, those conventional approaches had been shattered by the brutal realities of war and political upheaval.
The Spanish Civil War served as the crucible for Lam's radicalization. After the conflict erupted in 1936, the artist didn't merely observe from a distance—he actively joined the Republican forces fighting against Franco's fascist insurgency. In Madrid, Lam traded his brushes for a rifle, standing alongside the international volunteers who recognized the war as a precursor to a much larger European catastrophe. His direct involvement in the conflict, including work in a munitions factory that left him with chemical poisoning, forced him to Barcelona for recovery. It was there, in 1937, that he created his first explicitly political masterpiece.
La Guerra Civil (The Spanish Civil War) stands as a monumental work on paper that captures the horror and heroism of the conflict. The piece depicts a nightmarish street scene where corpses are scattered across the pavement, one pierced by swords. Grieving civilians surround the dead, their faces contorted in anguish. The composition includes powerful symbolic elements: a sickle representing the Communist forces who fought fascism, and bullfighting imagery alluding to the infamous Badajoz Massacre, where Francoist soldiers trapped approximately 4,000 Republican prisoners in a bullring before executing them all.
This powerful work is now receiving its first American display as part of the Museum of Modern Art's comprehensive retrospective, "Wifredo Lam: When I Don't Sleep, I Dream." The exhibition, which runs through April 11, represents the most extensive presentation of Lam's work ever mounted in the United States. The curatorial decision to place La Guerra Civil in the opening gallery establishes the political foundation for understanding the artist's subsequent evolution.
The painting's visual language deliberately evokes two masterpieces Lam encountered during his time in Spain. From Madrid's Prado Museum, Francisco Goya's The Third of May 1808 provided a historical precedent for depicting the brutality of military oppression. More immediately, Pablo Picasso's Guernica, also created in 1937, responded to the same conflict. Picasso's work, inspired by newspaper accounts of the Nazi bombing of Guernica that supported Franco's forces, became an international symbol of anti-fascist resistance.
An intriguing historical parallel exists between these works. Picasso entrusted Guernica to MoMA for safekeeping, stipulating it should not return to Spain until Franco's death. The painting remained in New York for 42 years, finally repatriated in 1981. Lam's La Guerra Civil faces an ironic reversal—it must leave America for Spain to escape rising authoritarian tendencies, rather than seeking refuge from them.
The exhibition's political context extends beyond the canvas to examine the complex international dynamics of the Spanish Civil War. While history often simplifies the conflict, the reality involved significant foreign intervention. American corporations including Ford, Texaco, and J.P. Morgan provided material support to Franco's fascist forces, prioritizing business interests over democratic principles. This pattern reflects a broader historical tendency: multinational corporations frequently find authoritarian regimes more accommodating to their operations than messy democracies with their transparency requirements and rotating leadership.
The Spanish Civil War represented a critical moment when Communists, socialists, trade unionists, and various radicals united against the fascist threat spreading across Europe. In Germany, France, Italy, and Russia, similar coalitions formed to combat the same ideology. The Communists, despite their later Cold War vilification in American narratives, stood firmly on the side of democracy and anti-fascism during this period.
La Guerra Civil serves as both historical document and timeless warning. Its imagery transcends the specific events of 1930s Spain to speak to universal themes of resistance, sacrifice, and the human cost of ideological conflict. The naked baby in the composition suggests both vulnerability and hope—the next generation that will inherit the consequences of political choices.
The MoMA exhibition thoughtfully bookends the presentation with another significant work: Grande Composition (Large Composition) from 1949. This later piece, displayed in the final gallery, offers a vision of liberation and empowerment that contrasts with the despair of La Guerra Civil while maintaining the political consciousness that defined Lam's mature style. Together, these works trace an arc from the darkness of war to the possibility of renewal.
Lam's legacy extends beyond his individual artistic achievements. As a Cuban artist of Chinese, Spanish, and African descent, he embodied the multicultural synthesis that would influence generations of Latin American artists. His work demonstrates how personal experience of political struggle can transform creative expression, turning academic technique into revolutionary art.
The timing of this exhibition carries particular resonance. As contemporary debates about fascism, authoritarianism, and corporate power dominate global discourse, Lam's work from nearly a century ago feels urgently relevant. The questions he raised about complicity, resistance, and the role of art in political struggle continue to challenge viewers today.
For American audiences, La Guerra Civil offers a corrective to simplified historical narratives. It reminds us that the fight against fascism was never a simple binary, but a complex international struggle involving unexpected alliances and contradictions. The fact that American business interests supported authoritarianism then, just as questions about such support exist today, creates an uncomfortable continuity that Lam's work forces us to confront.
The exhibition's title, "When I Don't Sleep, I Dream," suggests the persistent nature of artistic vision. For Lam, the nightmares of war and the dreams of liberation were inseparable. His work refuses to let viewers forget that political art emerges from lived experience, not abstract theory. The chemical poisoning he suffered, the comrades he lost, the cities he saw destroyed—these weren't distant news reports but personal tragedies that fueled his creative fire.
As visitors walk through the galleries, they encounter an artist who never separated aesthetics from ethics. Each brushstroke carried the weight of historical responsibility. The exhibition ultimately argues that Lam's greatest achievement wasn't merely surviving the Spanish Civil War, but transforming its trauma into a visual language that continues to speak truth to power.
The presentation at MoMA ensures that new generations will discover this vital voice in modern art. By bringing La Guerra Civil to American soil, even temporarily, the museum honors not just Lam's artistic genius, but the political courage that defined his generation. The work stands as testament to the belief that art must engage with the most pressing issues of its time, even when those issues involve uncomfortable truths about violence, complicity, and the fragility of democracy.