Jacqueline Lamba (1910 – 1993) was a French painter who participated in the Surrealist Movement between 1934-1947. Very few of Jacqueline Lamba’s surrealist works have survived to this day. They are mainly objects, collage and collective drawings, in which appears the abstract tendency of all her later work.
After studying art during the 1920s Lamba, lost her mother to TB. She then decides to earn her own living. She becomes a French teacher in Cardiff, in Greece, works as a interior decorator in the Trois Quartiers Parisian store, and at night she is a water-dancer at the Coliseum, a cabaret in Pigalle.
On August 14th 1934 she married André Breton, after having met each other the same year. Alberto Giacometti is the bride’s witness, Paul Eluard the poet’s, and Man Ray is the photographer. Jacqueline, who had already published experimental photographs in the ‘Du Cinéma’ review, takes part in the meetings and exhibitions of the surrealist group, with small works, transfers, watercolours, surrealist objects and collective works.
With Breton she had a daughter, Aube Elléouët Breton. She and Breton separated in 1943 and Lamba marries David Hare, an American sculptor. In April 1944 her first personal exhibition is organised.
After her son Merlin is born in New York 1958, her work changes: she breaks away from surrealism and even destroys some of her paintings. In 1955 she brakes up with David, and goes back to settle in Paris with her son in the Latin quarter. It is a time of liberation and pictorial expression. She goes to the art classes of the Grande Chaumière, paints from still lives and models. She also takes part in a great number of collective exhibitions.
Jacqueline Lamba dies on July 20th 1993. On her tomb, in Saché (Indre-et-Loire), are engraved the following words: Jacqueline Lamba 1910-1993 the night of the sunflower.
Jacqueline Lamba by Man Ray, 1930 via
In 1938 Jacqueline goes to Mexico with Breton for a series of conferences; there she meets Diego Rivera, Trotsky, and becomes friends with Frida Kahlo via
Lamba and Kahlo via
Lamba by Man Ray, 1930s via
Jacqueline Lamba by Rogi André via
FROM THE BYGONE 