Tropic (Trópico) is one of Wifredo Lam's most iconic images. Born in Cuba to a Chinese father and a mulatto mother, Lam moved to Paris in 1938. There he befriended Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), who introduced him to a wide circle of avant-garde artists. The events of World War II forced Lam in 1942 to escape to Havana, where he remained for ten years. In Cuba, Lam developed his signature style by synthesizing the dreamlike qualities of surrealism with a pictorial space indebted to cubism. Populated with human and vegetable hybrids, his works derive largely from his interest in the popular Afro-Cuban religion Santería. Ilona Katzew, 2008
