This distinctive visual style of his also influences many artists. Though he was predominantly a painter, he also worked with sculpture, ceramics and printmaking in his later life. He was of mixed-race ancestry: his mother, the former Ana Serafina Castilla, was born to a Congolese former slave mother and a Cuban mulatto father and his father, Yam Lam, was a Chinese immigrant.
In , Lam moved to Havana to study law, a path that his family had thrust upon him. Simultaneously he also began studying tropical plants at the Botanical Gardens. However, he disliked both academic teaching and painting. He left for Madrid , Spain, in the autumn of to further his art studies. In the mornings he would attend his conservative teacher's studio, while he spent his evenings working alongside young, nonconformist painters. While Lam's early paintings were in the modernist Spanish tradition, his work soon became more simplified and decorative.
It was in Paris that Lam was exposed to conventions of African sculpture. In , he married Eva Piriz, but both she and their young son died in of tuberculosis ; it is likely that this personal tragedy contributed to the dark nature of his work. During the s, Lam was exposed to a variety of influences. The influence of Surrealism was discernible in his work, as well as that of Henri Matisse. Drafted to defend Madrid, Lam was incapacitated during the fighting in late and was sent to Barcelona.
Manolo gave Lam the letter of introduction that sparked his friendship with Picasso , whose artwork had impressed and inspired Lam a year before when he saw an exhibition in Madrid. In , Lam moved to Paris. He also befriended the poet Mary Stanley Low. Picasso also introduced him to Pierre Loeb, a Parisian art dealer; Loeb gave Lam his first exhibition at the Galerie Pierre Loeb in , which received an enthusiastic response from critics.
Lam's work went from showing the influence of Matisse, seen in his still lifes , landscapes and simplified portraits, to being influenced by Cubism. Much of his work in possessed emotional intensity; the subject matter ranged from interacting couples to women in despair and showed a considerably stronger African influence, seen in the figures' angular outlines and the synthesis of their bodies. While Lam began simplifying his forms before he came into contact with Picasso's work, it is apparent that Picasso had a significant impact on him.
