WIFREDO LAM

Born in the sugar producing town of Sagua La Grande, Cuba, at the beginning of the 20th century, Lam left to study in Spain at age 21. After fighting fascism in the Spanish Civil War, he moved to Paris in 1938, but was soon displaced by the Nazi invasion of France. Lam reached Cuba via Martinique in 1941. His return to the Caribbean after 18 years and the conditions he found there drove him to transform his painting practice. In Havana he reconnected with Afro-Caribbean culture and religions, and explored the fluidity between physical, spiritual, and political realms by merging animal, plant, and human forms into what would become his signature approach to painting. While painting ambitious works that straddled figuration and abstraction, he experimented with ceramics and printmaking. Throughout, Lam collaborated closely with prominent poets including André Breton, Aimé Césaire, Édouard Glissant, and René Char.

Lam famously maintained that his painting was an act of decolonization. Together, his works reveal a deeply committed practice that changed the course of modern art and continues to resonate in our current moment. Featuring rarely exhibited works, Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream presents the full trajectory of Lam’s remarkable vision, inviting us to see the world anew.