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
Western use of the swastika in the early 20th century luck. The swastika's worldwide use was well documented in an 1894 publication by the Smithsonian. The symbol appeared in many popular, non-political Western designs from the 1880s to the 1920s, with occasional use continuing into the 1930s. Western use of the motif was subverted in the early 20th century after it was adopted as the emblem of the Nazi Party (). The swastika was used as a conveniently geometrical and eye-catching symbol to emphasise the so-called Aryan-German correspondence and instill racial pride. Since World War II, most Westerners have known the swastika as a Nazi symbol, leading to confusion about