This painting by Wilfredo Lam from 1947, Tropic, came at a time when Lam, an outlier among the last group of Surrealists as an emigre from Cuba, had returned to his homeland and the region and had newly become engaged with the traditions of Afro-Cuban divinities and spirituality.

Lam had gone to Paris in 1938 after living in Spain and fought in the Spanish Civil War and been taken up by Picasso by whom he was much influenced and who helped him get his first show. He was also the Surrealist who made primitive and ethnic sources central to his art. You can still see the influence of Picasso in this painting in the new Modern hang at Lacma but there is also a whiff of voodoo and masks. Lam was itinerant and much married, shuttling around Europe and the Carribbean during the war years literally, on the lam from the Nazis.

When I finally got to see the beautiful small Centro Wilfredo Lam devoted to his work in Havana however, it all came together for me. It’s so sad to hear about what is happening to Cuban artists today.