Source: WTL digitized@ images from Wilfredo Lam; Imagining New Worlds. Ed. Elizabeth T. Goizueta. Boston: McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, 2014, 93-94.
Image: "Mère et enfant, II" (1939). Gouache on paper. In the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
Comments: This work was produced in the middle of Lam's three years in France. It shows Lam's unique blend of modern European style and content. Formally, it is aligned with late Cubism, and, and, in terms of content, the figurative depiction of an African (or Afro-Cuban) mother and child is both a blend of Lam's own ethnicity and European artists' discovery of the "exotic" elements Africa and other non-European cultures.
Humanities Question: Given the title of this work, "Mother and Child, II," what is this painting communicating to the viewer about the relationship between a mother and her child in general or in the specific mother-child relationship depicted here?