Wifredo Lam: When I Don't Sleep, I Dream

Beverly Adams, Christophe Cherix

A sweeping retrospective of the innovative and influential Cuban-born artist, bringing new perspectives to his globe-spanning life and lyrical art Over a career spanning six decades, Wifredo Lam radically expanded the purview of modernism. Born in Cuba, Lam spent most of his life in Spain, France and Italy, and came to embody the figure of the transnational artist in the 20th century, forging a unique visual style at the confluence of European modernity and Caribbean and African diasporic cultures. The extent of his influence throughout the Black Atlantic is unrivaled as both a leading innovator and an anti-colonialist. Published in conjunction with the most extensive retrospective devoted to the artist in the United States, Wifredo Lam: When I Don't Sleep, I Dream brings together more than 150 works from his prolific career--including paintings, large-scale works on paper, collaborative drawings, illustrated books, prints, ceramics and archival material. This landmark publication features extensive new photography; trenchant insights into Lam's relationship to Surrealism, Négritude and other literary, cultural and poetic movements; and the first in-depth conservation analysis of Lam's best-known painting, The Jungle (1942-43). Wifredo Lam (1902-82) left his native Cuba at age 21 to pursue a career in painting.

Arts & CriticismArts & Criticism · high confidenceArts & Criticism81 signalsLlm Classifier: Arts & Criticism -> Arts & CriticismGoogle Books: Art -> Arts & CriticismKeyword Classifier: American History -> American HistoryIndigenous HistoryArt, Music & PerformanceBlack History & CultureEnvironment, Conservation & Pollution
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    • Wifredo Lam93%
  2. 02 Central places

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

    These suggestions did not meet the normal display threshold and are more likely to be wrong.

    • Cuba60%
    • Spain40%
    • France40%
  3. 03 Suggested argument

    No argument inferred with sufficient confidence.

    This suggestion did not meet the normal display threshold and is more likely to be wrong.

    Lam’s work is presented as radically expanding modernism by fusing European modernity with Caribbean and African diasporic cultures, with influence across the Black Atlantic and an anti-colonialist stance.

    Model confidence 55%

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    58 / 100 academic

    Trade / academic crossover

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 78%.