• Sculptor: Anna Hyatt Huntington
• Dedicated: 1965 (finished 1959)
• Medium and size: Bronze (18.5 feet), granite pedestal (16.5 feet)
• Location: Central Park South at Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas)

About the sculpture

Of the ten equestrian statues in Manhattan, Martí is by far the most dynamic. Whereas Bolivar, Washington, even Joan of Arc and the Cid, are satisfying from a side view, this one demands that we move around to view it from many angles.

To our right of Marti, Bolivar’s horse walks sedately, as if on parade. To our left, San Martin’s horse rears as its rider leads troops into battle. But Marti’s horse is twisting like a corkscrew, eyes rolling, mane flying. Martí himself wears civilian clothes and carries no weapon. The lack of uniform or armor sets him apart from every other equestrian statue in the city except Theodore Roosevelt (Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan, #42), who’s in mufti but flanked by armed guides. Further, Martí is leaning far to one side and has only one hand on the reins, despite his precarious situation. The other hand clutches his chest.

That gesture is the clue to the whole scene. This sculpture shows the moment just after Martí has been shot – a shot that killed Martí and terrified the horse.

We saw in Ericsson, Greeley and Holley (Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan, #2, 7, 11) that a good portrait sculpture must show not only the physical appearance of the subject but a pose or action characteristic of him, one that shows the sort of man he was.

But … no one has sculpted Washington or Jefferson on his deathbed. No one shows Nathan Hale dangling from the gallows. Yet the death of José Martí (1853-1895) was considered a fitting subject for his portrait sculpture, which implies that his death was more important than his life. How could that be?

About the subject

By the late nineteenth century, Cuba’s status as the lone colony of Spain in the Americas was intolerable to many Cubans. Reformists wanted Cuba to remain under Spanish dominion, but be ruled separately. Annexationists wanted Cuba to become part of the United States. Another party favored independence.

For years journalist, orator and poet Martí organized pro-independence Cuban exiles and rebels from his headquarters in New York. He wrote. He lectured. He arranged for warring factions to meet peacefully. Marti’s wide appeal and leadership made possible the Cuban revolution that began in February 1895. By May, Martí had traveled to Cuba, where military leaders ordered him to stay away from the front lines. During a skirmish at Dos Rios, Martí rode forward anyway, and was shot. The Spanish dumped his body into a mass grave.

Marti’s death was indeed as important as his life – more precisely, not the way he died, but the fact that he died when he did. True, he died too early in the Revolution to enjoy the glory of victory. On the other hand, he could not be blamed for the problems that plagued Cuba in the following decades.

Beginning in the 1920s, Cubans of all factions began to appeal to Martí’s eclectic writings to support their views. It’s clear even from his early notebooks that Martí rejected the model of the United States.

The North Americans put feeling after practicality. We put practicality after feeling. And if there is this difference in organization, in living, in being, if they were busy selling while we were weeping, if we replace their cold and calculating heads by our imaginative heads, and their hearts of cotton and ships by such a special, sensitive and new heart that it can only be called a Cuban heart, how do you want us to be governed by the laws that they use for governing themselves? Our lives are not like theirs, nor should we be so in so many matters. We feel very strongly about things. . . . The American laws have given the North a high degree of prosperity, and have also raised it to the highest degree of corruption. They have made money the chief good so as to create prosperity. Cursed be prosperity at such a cost!

Jose Martí , “Notebook 1,” 1871, trans. E. Allen

What Marti advocated instead of the U.S. model is unclear. Although he wrote prolifically, his suggestions changed over time and varied according to whether he was addressing fellow revolutionaries, factory workers, Latin Americans or citizens of the United States. Every Cuban faction could find something in Martí’s writings to agree with.

By the 1950s, when Huntington created this sculpture, Martí had been transformed into a heroic martyr: the architect of Cuban independence and an inspiration to all Cubans. Huntington paid for the sculpture. Dictator Fulgencio Batista’s government donated $100,000 for the sculpture’s pedestal. The sculpture was completed and the pedestal was in place by 1959, when Batista “resigned” and Fidel Castro came to power.

Fearing riots between Castro and anti-Castro forces, the State Department and the New York Police Department recommended that Martí temporarily be put into storage. Yet even the empty pedestal caused problems. In January 1960 there was rioting over the right to honor Marti’s birthday by laying wreaths on it. “Assassins, murderers!” shouted pro-Castro forces. “Communists, godless blackguards!” responded the anti-Castro forces.

In October 1964, anti-Castroites borrowed a six-foot plaster model from Huntington’s studio, but found it too heavy to raise to the empty pedestal. They positioned it on the sidewalk, “confident that the 600-pound statue would not be easily carried away by the police,” reported Gay Talese in the New York Times (10/10/1964). “Four hours later the statue was easily carried away by the police.” The monument was finally set on its pedestal and unveiled in 1965.

Cartoons on the Spanish-American War

Judge, 1895.

Above: from Judge, 10/19/1895. On the left, outside the window, Spain jumps up and down on Cuba, who carries the banner “Liberty or Death.” Inside, Columbia (the United States) falls asleep holding the news of Cuba (“The Spanish rule in Cuba is a history of bloodshed, tyranny, and brutality”). Behind Columbia, Lafayette and Steuben reproach her: “What! Asleep with that cry for aid at your door! What would have been yourfate if we had acted similarly in your hour of tribulation?”

Above: Judge 4/30/1898. At the foot is the caption, “ ‘War is hell.’ – Sherman. Peace in Cuba under Spanish rule is worse than Hell.” Spain, wearing matador pants and a belt that says “Spain” and “Devil’s Deputy,” tramples a skeletally thin Cuban and the corpse of an American sailor with “U.S. Maine” on his collar. The Devil, seated on a pile of skulls, looks cheerfully on. Left of the skulls, a note reads, “Over 500,000 innocent people starved to death by Spain!”

Anna Hyatt Huntington

Huntington (1876-1973), a native of Cambridge, Massachusetts, is renowned for her animal sculptures. Joan of Arc, 1915, was her first major commission. In 1923 she married railroad heir Archer Huntington and came to share his passion for Spain, producing an ensemble for the Hispanic Society of America courtyard that includes the Cid, 1936, reliefs of Don Quixote and Boabdil, and numerous animals native to Spain. The Bronx has the Arabella Huntington Memorial (Woodlawn Cemetery.)

Marti, her last major work, was completed when she was 82 years old. Characteristically, Huntington was not only brilliant in her execution of the horse (she was one of America’s great animal sculptors), but thorough in her research. The plants below the horse’s hoofs are native to Cuba, helping create an exotic setting for a figure who’s dressed in conventional 1890s business attire.

More

• Many of Huntington’s works are on view at Brookgreen Gardens (Pawley’s Island, S.C.), which she and her husband founded in 1931 as a showplace for American figurative sculpture.
• Marti’s description of the Great Blizzard of 1888 is quoted in the Conkling episode.
• In Getting More Enjoyment from Sculpture You Love, I demonstrate a method for looking at sculptures in detail, in depth, and on your own. Learn to enjoy your favorite sculptures more, and find new favorites. Available on Amazon in print and Kindle formats. More here.
• Want wonderful art delivered weekly to your inbox? Check out my free Sunday Recommendations list and rewards for recurring support: details here.