Cuban art his homeland. He rapidly developed his mature style, which incorporated elements of Cubism, Surrealism, and African art, along with imagery of the Santeria rituals he'd grown up around. In 1943 he painted "The Jungle", which is considered to be among the masterpieces of Cuban art. Amelia Peláez (1896 - 1968) was the sole major female artist of the vanguardia. A San Alejandro graduate, she studied and worked for several years in Paris, where, prior to her return to Havana in 1934, she absorbed the influence of Henri Matisse and, especially, the Cubism of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. During her
Georges Braque throughout Paris and then Europe. The two artists' productive collaboration continued and they worked closely together until the beginning of World War I in 1914, when Braque enlisted with the French Army. In May 1915, Braque received a severe head injury in battle at Carency and suffered temporary blindness. He was trepanned, and required a long period of recuperation. Braque resumed painting in late 1916. Working alone, he began to moderate the harsh abstraction of cubism. He developed a more personal style characterized by brilliant color, textured surfaces, and—after his relocation to the Normandy seacoast—the reappearance of the human figure.