|
He participated in the group's activities, such as the making of the Tarot de Marseille, and helped produce collective drawings. He also illustrated Breton's poem Fata Morgana with six drawings that prefigured his mature style and iconography. In 1941 he joined three hundred intellectuals escaping war-torn Europe aboard the Capitaine Paul Merle en route to Martinique. The salient event of his seven-month trip to Cuba was meeting the poet Aime Cesaire, whose exploration and affirmation of Afro-Caribbean culture influenced and paralleled his own. Lam's rencounter with his native land in 1941 had a decisive effect on his art, perhaps more so than in the case of his contemporaries due to his long absence. |