Cuba Museo de Artes Decoorativas 

info found with the help of Rolando Milian tel. (203) 980 7564 He has a great site about Cuba: www.art-havana.com 

Cuban Museum Receives Multi-Million Dollar African Art Donation

 Havana, April 18, 2006 (found at ACN)  An African art collection valued in $3.2 million was donated to the Art Museum in Cuba’s western city of Matanzas by painter Lorenzo Tomas Padilla Diaz. 

The collected works include 300 works of art from 61 ethnic groups of the dark continent, as well as books and a photographic library on African art, reported Juventud Rebelde online newspaper. 

There are also carvings in precious woods representing religious idols, masks, musical instruments, clothes and terra-cotta sculptures from African nations such as Angola, Niger, Mali, Congo, Liberia, Burkina Faso and the Ivory Coast. 

This is the third contribution of this type by Padilla Diaz to the museum located in his home town. The painter explained that he buys African works from the profits of his sales in Paris. 

Padilla (72) and friend of the late Wilfredo Lam, noted that most of the collection is made up of ancient pieces, some of them dating back to 500 BC and others from the 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th centuries.