Centro Wifredo Lam

Centro Wifredo Lam Review

Dedicated to and named for the great Cuban surrealist painter known as the Cuban Picasso, this gallery and museum is just behind the Catedral de la Habana in the elegant, 18th-century Casa del Obispo Peñalver. The center hosts temporary shows with works by contemporary Cuban and South American artists. Lam, born in 1902, studied in Spain and fought with the Republic against Franco. He later fled to France, where he was influenced by Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and the poet André Breton, among others. He returned to Cuba to support the Revolution, and later returned to Paris, where he died in 1982. His best works hang in the Cuban collection of Havana's Museo de Bellas Artes.