Cuban artist, Carlos Lacámara, was vice president of an advertising agency in Havana, when he and his wife, Adria, a former opera singer escaped from Cuba in 1960.  “If I had stayed there, I would have ended up in jail,” Lacámara explained at the time.

The couple and their two young children, Carlos and Laura, made it to Washington, D.C..  In November 1960, the Washington Star newspaper interviewed Lacámara and published an article featuring nine of his paintings. Lacámara quickly landed a job illustrating for National Geographic magazine.  He worked there for five years before moving to Puerto Rico, where he created an acclaimed series of Don Quixote oil paintings.