Wifredo Lam

Known for: The Jungle (1943); synthesis of Cubism and Afro-Caribbean culture

Wifredo Lam was born in Cuba of Chinese and Afro-Cuban descent and studied in Madrid before moving to Paris, where he formed close friendships with Picasso and André Breton. His painting The Jungle (1943) — a dense, humid forest of sugarcane stalks and Afro-Cuban religious figures — synthesized Cubism, Surrealism, and Afro-Caribbean visual tradition in a way that had no precedent in European modernism. He is considered the most significant Cuban artist of the twentieth century.