Sculpture of José Martí on Horseback, Work of Great Symbolism

The arrival in Havana of the bronze monumental piece is a spin-off of the generous contribution of Cubans and Americans

Carlos Heredia Reyes

Since early October when it was sited in the 13 de Marzo Park, in Old Havana, there is not a day that the huge sculpture of the Apostle on horseback goes unnoticed for national and foreign passers-by.

It’s the replica of the statue of José Martí on horseback, located since 1950 in the Central Park of New York, based on the original work of the American artist Anna Hyatt (1876-1973) which records the moment of the Apostle’s death in combat in Dos Ríos, on May 19, 1895.

The arrival of the 3-ton and 5.67 meter-high monumental bronze piece in Havana, sculpted in Philadelphia, is the result of the generous contribution by Cubans and Americans.

For that reason the unloading in the port, transfer and location were all a media event, in moments in which the Donald Trump administration reinforces the blockade and the hostility against Cuba.

On January 28, 2018, in tribute to the 165th birth anniversary of our National Hero, it will be officially unveiled in a formal sitting, and by then the ornamental plants and flowers planted there will have grown, the palms and trees surrounding it will be more slender, The banks located throughout the aforementioned park are gleaming, and above all the masterly monument will shine like never before.

A flagpole will also make part of the sculpture complex

The replica is surrounded by the Museum of the Revolution, the statue of Major General Máximo Gómez, the Parque de las Murallas, the headquarters the National Young Communists League Committee, the José Martí Pioneers Organization president’s office and the Provincial People’s Power Assembly of Havana.

“This place is highly significant: the north terrace of the Palace witnessed Camilo Cienfuegos’ historic speech. Máximo Gómez, the generalissimo who accompanied him at the definitive hour is looking at the sea, towards that country he knew as a few”, Dr. Eusebio Leal, historian of Havana, told the press.

You only have to see the children’s amazement when they go around that place for the first time, and you hear their spontaneous and honest voices praising Martí, their greater admiration comes at the thought of him on horseback in combat against the Spanish soldiers.

That’s the ideal moment to motivate children, adolescent and youngsters to read, research and explore on the life and work of the most universal of all Cubans.

As Cubadebate points out it took Eusebio Leal, the Office of the Historian of Havana and all the admirers of Martí, more than 20 years to have a piece like this one on the Island, whose location adds a new image to the set of monuments dedicated to the Apostle.

In meeting with the press in the same place where the replica is, Leal thanked the US institutions and “friendly and respectful people” who helped make this project possible which reproduces the only statue in the world where the Cuban independence hero appears on horseback.

Among them he mentioned the Museum of Arts of the Bronx, the Cuban patriotic emigration and “a Mexican lady who out of modesty asked not to be mentioned”.   

About Anna Hyatt, who conceived that “symbolic and representative work” at the age 82, he said that she was “a woman enlightened by an artistic vocation and a spontaneous and affectionate devotion to the history of Cuba.”

Translated by ESTI