Wifredo Lam, a Cuban-born painter, is not exactly little-recognized. Even during his day, he was considered a cornerstone of the Surrealist movement, befriending André Breton, Pablo Picasso, and others through connections forged in France, where he first gained fame. But Lam’s work beyond Europe, which he left in 1941, remains lesser-known outside the Caribbean—something that a new retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art aims to remedy.

Curated by Christophe Cherix and Beverly Adams, along with Damasia Lacroze and Eva Caston, the MoMA show, billed as Lam’s first US retrospective, comprises some 130 works, including rarely seen paintings and drawings that attest to the artist’s engagement with Afro-Caribbean traditions such as the Lucumí religion. Among those pieces is one newly acquired work from MoMA’s holdings that is making its public premiere after years in a private collection. More on that piece and others below.

Read a full review of the show here.

A painting of many figures pressed together. Some hold bayonets while crying women lean over a dead body. A nude baby tumbles over nearby them.
Image Credit: ©Wifredo Lam Estate/Adagp, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/Capriles Cannizzaro Family Collection

Some of Lam’s earliest works were made in Spain, where he finished out art school. This one responds to the horrors of the Spanish Civil War.

A drawing of a figure with one breast, multiple arms, a big foot, and a mane, as well as a crescent moon.
Image Credit: ©Wifredo Lam Estate/Adagp, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/Museum of Modern Art

Fata Morgana was produced as an illustration for a book by André Breton, who has commonly been credited as the leader of the Surrealist movement.

A painting of many elongated figures with mask-like faces standing amid sugarcane.
Image Credit: ©Wifredo Lam Estate/Adagp, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/Museum of Modern Art

Commonly regarded as Lam’s masterpiece and produced upon his return to Cuba in 1941, La jungla situates a group of beings amid sugarcane. Their faces resemble African masks, to which Lam often referred.

A painting of multihued, overlapping figures in a thicket of palm fronds.
Image Credit: ©Wifredo Lam Estate/Adagp, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 2025/Private Collection

Lam continued producing dazzlingly colored paintings of beings in settings dense with foliage during the 1940s. This painting’s title could allude to an instrument played by an angel.

A painting of many elongated figures and horse-like beings.
Image Credit: ©Wifredo Lam Estate/Adagp, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/Museum of Modern Art

Grande Composition spent years in a private collection abroad. The Lam show’s co-curator, Christophe Cherix, coaxed the collector in parting with the piece, which has now entered MoMA’s collection.

An abstraction made of thick, thorn-like forms tangled together.
Image Credit: ©Wifredo Lam Estate/Adagp, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/Private Collection

During the ’50s, Lam began making abstractions that contain no obvious figures. The MoMA show asserts that these, too, are rooted in his Afro-Caribbean perspective, alluding to the landscape of Cuba.

A painting of arcing white figures with elongated bodies and narrow heads against a grey background.
Image Credit: ©Wifredo Lam Estate/Adagp, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/Collection Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, New York

A horse-like figure known as a femme-cheval recurs throughout Lam’s oeuvre, which frequently elides the boundary between humanity and other animals.

A painting of multiple elongated figures with dark, mask-like faces. Two hold a being with wings and a horse's face.
Image Credit: ©Wifredo Lam Estate/Adagp, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/Courtesy McClain Gallery/Private Collection

Damballa, the deity mentioned in the title of this painting, recurs throughout traditions of the African diaspora, including Vodun.