13/10/2026
UPCOMING | JACQUELINE LAMBA
Jacqueline Lamba (1910–1993) developed her artistic practice at the heart of a circle of artists and friends whose encounters shaped her career. Trained at the École des Arts décoratifs, where she became close to Dora Maar, who remained her lifelong friend, she married André Breton in 1934. Breton made her the central figure of L’Amour fou (Mad Love), and she entered the Surrealist circle, alongside Paul and Nusch Éluard, Alberto Giacometti and Pablo Picasso, who would later play a decisive role in bringing recognition to her work. In Mexico in 1938, she met Diego Rivera, Leon Trotsky and, above all, Frida Kahlo, with whom she formed a deep friendship. In Marseille, at the Villa Air-Bel, she came into contact with Wifredo Lam, Max Ernst and André Masson, and took part with them in the Jeu de Marseille.
Her exile in New York, made possible by the support of Peggy Guggenheim, placed her at the heart of a vibrant and rapidly evolving art scene. In 1943, she took part in Exhibition by 31 Women, organised by Peggy Guggenheim with Marcel Duchamp, alongside Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini and Frida Kahlo, followed by The Women in 1945. She also met David Hare there, whom she married in 1946 and who fully recognised her as an artist. In 1944, she held her first solo exhibition at the Norlyst Gallery. Her painting then evolved, in keeping with the trajectory of her artistic journey, towards greater freedom: colour, light and gesture expressed her distinctive relationship with nature and the sensory world.
Returning to France in the 1950s, she reconnected with Picasso, Françoise Gilot, Giacometti and Claude Cahun, before devoting herself to landscape painting, both rural and urban. From 1963 to 1980, she spent every summer in Simiane-la-Rotonde, in the Haute-Provence region. In 1967, the Picasso Museum in Antibes, at Picasso’s own initiative, dedicated an exhibition to her work.
