Boxed in Cuba

Charcoal on vintage wooden cigar box

In the 19th century, thriving Cuban plantations relied on labour from the slave system; over a million Africans were shipped to Cuba to spend their lives satisfying the world's insatiable demand for tobacco and sugar. This drawing, which is based on an old faded photograph of one of those slaves, is made on a box given to me over fifty years ago, which had originally held Cuban cigars.