Gary Nader Art Centre proudly presents Wifredo Lam and the Great Cubans a comprehensive compendium of important paintings, drawings and sculptures by Modern and Contemporary Cuban Masters.

The exhibition features selected artworks by world-renowned Angel Acosta Leon, Carlos Alfonzo, Pedro Alvarez, Hernan Bas, Jose Bedia, Cundo Bermudez, Agustin Cárdenas, Mario Carreño, Luis Cruz Azaceta, Carlos Enríquez, Agustin Fernández, Gay Garcia, Alexis Leyva Machado (Kcho), Wifredo Lam, Julio Larraz, Victor Manuel, Armando Mariño, Manuel Mendive, Amelia Peláez, Rene Portocarrero, Carlos Quintana, Mariano Rodriguez, Tomas Sanchez, Rafael Soriano and Ruben Torres – Llorca, among others.

The Collection consists of over 50 important artworks showcasing the historical richness, development, and excellence of Cuban art throughout the works of its most representative authors, their technical skills, variety of themes, concepts and forms that built a solid and remarkable image of Cuban art worldwide.

Generations of Cuban artists are represented in this exhibition, distinguished by their aim of captioning the national - essential and the local uniqueness to discourse through diverse subject matters, forms, colors, personages, objects and landscapes about a national identity as well as universal topics.

Wifredo Lam and the Great Cubans features a strong selection of Lam’s works that best represent the different periods of his prolific career. An outstanding masterpiece titled Hermes Trismegiste, 1945, oil on canvas, 63 x 50 in. 160 x 127 cm embodies the artist’s iconic characters, hybrid figures, part human, animal and flora elements appropriated from Afro–Cuban culture and religion, merging primitive aesthetics with the legacy of Western composition. Lam embodies “the Negro spirit, the beauty of the plastics of the blacks” utilizing the inherited technical tools from the Surrealism and Cubist movement.

Among The Great Cubans are Acosta Leon and his everyday objects; Carreño's explosion of vivid colors, tropical fruits and flowers, rural characters, powerful and dynamic compositions; Carlos Enriquez's symbolism, natural sensuality and transparencies; Cundo Bermudez's unique pictorial manner and his visual discourse containing elements that defined a strong and exceptional artistic individuality; the distinct, suggestive and detailed technique of Julio Larraz’s work; Amelia Peláez and her outlook of a new reality inspired by the geometric Modernist vocabulary of bright paintings and the luminosity of the Caribbean, the architectural strong black lines of the stained glass windows, wrought-iron screens, sunlit patios, and fruit-filled dining tables.