Wifredo Lam

Wifredo Lam was a Cuban painter of mixed Chinese, African, and Spanish descent whose work fused European modernism, particularly Cubism and Surrealism, with imagery drawn from Afro-Cuban culture and the Santeria religious tradition. After studying in Madrid and Paris, where he became close to Pablo Picasso and the Surrealist circle around Andre Breton, Lam returned to Cuba in 1941 and produced his best-known painting, The Jungle, a large canvas of hybrid human, animal, and plant forms set within dense sugarcane vegetation that has been read as a commentary on colonialism, slavery, and Afro-Caribbean spiritual identity. Lam's synthesis of European avant-garde technique with Caribbean and African subject matter made him a pivotal figure connecting Latin American and European modernism.