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I Knew It Was You, Wifredo

Wifredo Lam was born to a Chinese father and an Afro-Cuban mother, came of age with Picasso in late 1930s Europe, and preferred painting on paper to canvas. Now, with a new MoMA retrospective, as well as nearly 20 works up for auction next week, the hard-to-categorize painter is finding global recognition.

Wifredo Lam
The exhibition is chronological and notably biographical, delving deeper into the influences and circumstances of Lam’s evolving style than into the specifics of his compositions. Born in Cuba in 1902, he traveled to Spain in his early 20s to study painting but ended up joining the Republican forces against Franco. Photo: Archives SDO Wifredo Lam, Paris/Courtesy of MoMA
Julie Brener Davich
November 16, 2025

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Wifredo Lam’s masterpiece La Jungla (The Jungle) has been a centerpiece of MoMA’s collection since it was acquired from Pierre Matisse Gallery in 1945. The monumental work on paper, mounted on canvas, depicts elongated figures blending into Caribbean sugarcane stalks. It hung in the museum’s lobby on and off for decades, literally and figuratively removed from the narrative of modern art in the galleries—until 1988, that is, when critic John Yau called out the museum for isolating the painting as if it didn’t belong in the canon. The new MoMA retrospective of Lam’s work, on view through April, more than compensates for that slight.