Wifredo Lam was born in 1902 in Sagua la Grande (Cuba). He was Yam Lam’s son, a Chinese emigrant who gave him birth in 84 years, and of Ana-Serafina, a Cuban halfcaste.

He studied Law before leaving his island in 1923 for Spain. Wifredo Lam knew that he could be only a creator, a painter or a poet; also he joined the Artcollege of Madrid where he would work in the painter Fernando Alvarez de Sotomayor’s atelier.

His first personal exhibition was organized in 1928. The work of Wifredo Lam was in its halfcaste history (China, Africa, and the Antilles). The artist was notably inspired by Africans who brought in Cuba « their primitive culture, their magic religion, and its mystic aspect in narrow correspondence with the nature ».

During the Spanish civil war, Wifredo Lam fought for the republicans. He was obliged to take refuge in France in 1937; there, he met Picasso who helped him to find his place in the Parisian artistic environment and introduced him to his friends (Michel Leiris, Paul Eluard, Tristan Tzara, Léger, Braque, Miro, Christian Zervos, Matisse, etc.). In 1939, Lam got acquainted with Benjamin Peret; he joined André Breton and the surrealist movement. He painted, drew, etched imaginary and baroque worlds stemming from « the automatism of the thought ». Lam often worked by series. He made (1941), together with a group of surrealist artists, a journey in his native country. Wifredo Lam created human or animal forms that he laid into exuberant environments. Later, the artist stylized his figures which became subjects-totems, "intimate confession" of his existence. He did an important graphic work (lithographs and etchings), illustrations for numerous works, wall frescoes, ceramics and terra-cottas.

Wifredo Lam died in Paris in 1982. According to the painter’s will, his ashes were transferred in Cuba, where was created in posthumous honoring, the "Centre Wifredo Lam" for the promotion and the study of the Third World-Plastic Arts.