Wifredo Lam review – the last of the great surrealists

Tate Modern, London
The artist’s odyssey from Cuba to Europe and back again turned him from a disciple of Picasso into a feverish painter of gods, monsters, mystery and sex

In 1941, a group of intellectuals who believed in black magic sat in a villa near Marseille shuffling tarot cards as they waited and waited for a chance of a boat out of Nazi-occupied Europe. The tarot pack did not show their futures. Instead they drew and painted on the cards, turning the arcane symbols into portraits, the portraits into dreams. Another way to pass the time was by playing a surrealist version of the parlour game Consequences, collaborating to create bizarre collages. The time hung heavily, but in the end they sailed for the New World.

It must have seemed like a voyage backwards to Wifredo Lam. This Cuban-born artist was one of the bored refugees who played with the tarots at the Villa Air-Bel, along with André Breton, leader of the surrealist movement, who would become a lifelong supporter of Lam’s work.

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