Mention the name Wifredo Lam in a crowded room and, more often than not, you’ll be met with a sea of quizzical faces. Or, best-case scenario, you’ll receive one of these reductive bits of information: that he was of mixed heritage, that he painted voodoo symbols, or, most commonly, that he was a friend of Pablo Picasso.
All three of the above may be true, but the paucity of general knowledge on Lam does a disservice to his groundbreaking body of work. Throughout his 60-year career, this 20th-century Cuban painter traversed the globe – sometimes by choice, other times in exile – borrowing and lending ideas to art movements as he went. Yet, during his lifetime, Lam’s work was met with an emphasis on its ‘otherness’, owning to his background…
