Once upon a time, there was a sculptor that used to capture images of persons to create them in clay while establishing a conversation with them.
He didn't need an inmovile model, because he quickly caught the expressions on their faces, gestures, movements of mouths and hairs, the internal world of the characters.

He almost used no tools, working mainly with his fingertips, in a so speedy way that it was hardly to notice the exact moment in which a piece of clay was transformed to a sudden nose or smile.

Being very young, he ran from plaza to plaza, making sculptoresque photographs to many inhabitants: the blind man, the violinist, a man sitting on a corner in the street.
An hour was enough for him to finish the ''portray''. There were so many people surrounding him when he worked at the streets that his presence provoked traffic jam once and it was necessary to ask him for help in order to disperse the disorder.

Being 11 years old, as his closest relatives say, he made the first sculpture in his house`s yard in Cerro: he put there his beloved Martí. Afterwards, his talente gave birth to many other heads; illustrious women and men of arts, sciences and history.

He was owner of clay, iron, concrete, wood and canvas (where he created his roosters and horses), doing his best all the time. His prints are spread all over the island and overseas places, such as Mexico, Spain, Angola and Uruguay in which he left more than 120 monumental and middle-format works.

His hands created the famous Santa Clara's Ché, monuments to the Generalísimo Máximo Gómez and other like Federico Engels, José Martí`s and some others devoted to the victims of the atomic bombard in Nagasaki, among many others.


Isis and Leo, two of his children, who possess wide experience and prestigy as sculptors and painters, learned from him that before painting or sculpting, is necessary to know who is the character, his/her personal features and temper, otherwise, what is born is an ''empty puppet''. Flor de Paz, his older daughter took from him the inspiration to draw the world with words.

José Ramón de Lázaro Bencomo is the name of this artist (who died recently) or better, as the poetess Olga Navarro says, ''he is life and is still present among us''. He was very known under the nickname of Delarra.

This was the sign for the incredible sum of 1 500 artworks he made including sculptures, paintings, murals, drawings, small-format pieces and ceramic.

He wanted to represent some of his fellows of culture and modelled their heads at the studio from Old Havana, transformed nowadays in the Cabagallos Gallery. He strongly hold the idea of recreating them artistically and created Pablo Armando Fernández over a book; Olga Navarro, surrounded by the sea and shells; Zaida del Río with a bird on the head. He also sculpted Jesús Orta Ruiz, Harold Gramatges and Enrique Núñez Rodríguez.

Taken from a paper published on Juventud Rebelde Journal, 24/03/04.