(b. Sagua la Grande, Cuba, 1902; d. Paris, France, 1982).
Lam is recognized as one of the most significant Cuban modernist painters and sculptors. Lam was born in Cuba in 1902 to a large family of African European and Chinese decent. He attended the School of Fine Arts in Havana from 1918-1920. He traveled to Europe and Studied in Spain with Fernandez Alvarez de Sotomayer. He fought in the Spanish civil war and ended up in Paris where he met Picasso who became an important influence and close friend. At this point he was working primarily in gauche and his work demonstrates the influences of cubism and Picassos interest in African sculpture. Through Picasso, Lam met Breton and Benjamin Peret and joined the Surrealist group. He fled Europe with the outbreak of WWII and returned eventually to Havana where his work began to reflect a new interest in black Caribbean culture, voodoo and mesmerism. Lam moved to New York in 1946 where he met Arshile Gorky and Marcel Duchamp and Roberto Mat
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