This book reinterprets Wifredo Lam’s work with particular attention to its political implications, focusing on how these implications emerge from the artist’s critical engagement with twentieth century anthropology. It also reinvestigates the artist’s relationship to key figures in the history of modern art, including Picasso, André Breton and Michel Leiris, and Jackson Pollock. Field work conducted in Cuba, including the witnessing of actual Afro-Cuban religious ritual ceremonies and information collected from informants, supplies the interpretive background against which Lam construed the meanings of his art. In the process, Claude Cernuschi argues that Lam hoped to fashion a new hybrid style to foster pride and dignity in the Afro-Cuban community, as well as counteract the acute racism of Cuban culture.