Un Camello en La Habana

Un Camello en La Habana — "A Camel in Havana" — depicts the legendary Cuban "camellos": articulated buses created by welding a passenger cabin onto the back of a truck chassis, their humped silhouette giving them their nickname. These improvised vehicles became symbols of the Special Period's ingenuity and hardship.

The bus dominates the canvas with an almost heroic presence, its passengers visible through the windows, the colonial facade of Central Havana stretching behind it. The painting is rendered in Yosan's characteristic sepia palette, giving the scene the quality of a faded but beloved photograph.

Of all the works in the American Dream series, Un Camello en La Habana is perhaps the most specifically Cuban — a vehicle that existed nowhere else in the world, born of necessity, that became an icon of an era and a city.