Understanding how the past intersects with the present helps inform our views of the world. As individuals, we share recollections, at times lucid and temporal, at other times imprecise. We shape meaning around ideas, values, symbols, customs, and myths centered on historic interpretation. The formation of ethos and identity, like the articulation of art, serve as representations of this consciousness. Art, like collective memory, can be luminous and worldly at times, and inexact at others. How does identity impact art? We address this question by contextualizing the artists and paintings that comprise the collection, Under the Spell of the Palm Tree: The Rice Collection of Cuban Art.