Return to Havana

When Enzo left Havana, Carmen Garcia was a girl of 17. Two years later, when he returned from Italy, his fiancee had blossomed into a young woman who turned men's heads wherever she went.

Their wedding was an enormous and festive affair. As soon as it was over the newlyweds left for a place that Enzo had been telling Carmen about for years: Mexico.

The honeymooners visited every museum, every mural in Mexico City. They admired the cathedral in Puebla, and clambered up the Pyramid of the Sun and the Moon.

Only one small point made the honeymoon of Carmen and Enzo Gallo different from any other. Every time the bridegroom saw a piece of marble sculpture, he would hesitate. Although her new husband said nothing, Carmen knew: he missed the heft of the chisel, the solid ring of mallet on marble.

Enzo and Carmen returned to Havana to a special wedding present: a lovely home in the Alturas de Bosques section in Marianao, not far from the Gallo marble studio. Enzo went back to work with his uncles, but with one important change. The back of their showroom was converted into his studio for fine art-his uncles' homage to his talent and ambition to become a fine sculptor.

Then one of the art professors at San Alejandro retired. Enzo realized that the post was highly competitive and that he had graduated only three years earlier, but he applied anyway. When he was notified that he had won the job, he was ecstatic.

Something else was happening during those post-honeymoon days in Havana. He was becoming recognized as a fine artist, and his work was beginning to be in demand, primarily due to the critical acclaim garnered in winning his first award for sculpture. Ironically, at the time Enzo didn't even know he was competing.

While Enzo was working near Carrara, his uncles had entered one of his sculptures, "Ritorno;' in the annual exhibition at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana. It won an honorable mention.

"There I was thousands of miles away, in Italy, helping other people with their work, and I had won my first award back in Havana. I was thrilled. I can tell you-not only was it the first time I had won an award for sculpture, but it was for my first semi-abstract work. I couldn't wait to start exploring the possibilities of more semi abstractions:'

When he returned to Havana, several collectors approached Enzo who wanted to purchase "Ritorno:' Like many other artists, he discovered that he couldn't bear to part with his first award-winner.

Not so with his second sculpture of that period, though. As soon as it was done it was sold to collector Carlos de la Torre for $800, a great deal of money in those days.

After that first sale, Enzo began entering more exhibitions. As his work became better known in Havana art circles, the commissions started coming in, both for commercial marble work and for sculpture. Several architects commissioned him to design and execute mosaic panels and walls on their projects.

His major works during this period included an eight-foot Carrara marble relief, "The Sea;' for the Hotel Riviera in Havana; several residential commissions from one of Havana's most fashionable architects, "Cuco'' Perez Llane; and an entrance wall relief for the home of Juan Hernandez, owner of Havana's La Cafeteria Nacional. Enzo also began a monumental relief in Cuban limestone at the Reina Mercedes Hospital, but it was destined, like Enzo himself, to become a victim of Cuban politics.

In 1958 Enzo Gallo was accorded his highest honor to that date: his work "Ritorno'' was selected as the one piece of sculpture to represent Cuba in the Mexican Biennial. At 32, he had begun to reap the rewards from his long years of work and school.

Meanwhile, changes were taking place in Cuba, some of them little understood at the time. The Fidelistas had taken control of the Cuban government, welcomed in most cases by people who thought they were replacing a dictator with a democracy.

Enzo, too, thought that maybe Castro would be a welcome change for Cuba. But soon three events happened that forced him to change his mind-and his life.

The first was Castro's agrarian reform movement, one of his initial acts after the takeover.

Enzo's father-in-law, Julio Garcia, was the owner of a large tobacco plantation who had worked very hard all his life. His mother-in-law, Dr. Obdulia Miranda de Garcia, was a pharmacist who owned her own drugstore. The first thing the Castro government did was to take over the sugar-cane and tobacco fields, and all other farmland.

The next step was more subtle. "I received a letter from the Minister of Education, telling me to give examinations to all my students and turn over the grades to the ministry. What was happening, I finally figured out, was that Castro wanted his supporters in positions of authority, including ranks in college classes: I got upset and went to the director of the Academy. He told me to go ahead and do whatever they asked me to. I just didn't do it:'

The third action by the Castro regime was both direct and brutal. Two men from the government went to the Garcia's drugstore. "Dr. Garcia;' they said, "would you like to work for us?" "What do you mean;' she asked them. "I own this place:' "No, Dr. Garcia;' they said. "You used to own this place. Now the government owns it. Would you like to work for us?"

When Enzo and Carmen heard about the confiscation of her mother's drugstore, they looked at each other for a long time, saying nothing. Then Enzo spoke to her, sadly. "I don't think we can live here anymore;' he said.

Their plan was for him to go to Miami and find work, then send for her and their son, Bruno, then eight months old.

Leaving the Academy, the Gallo marble works, his studio, his home and family was the most difficult decision that Enzo Gallo ever made.

In November of 1960, Enzo Gallo, professor of fine art, award-winning sculptor, master marble worker, boarded a Cubana Airlines plane for Miami. In his pocket he carried the maximum amount of currency that could be taken at that time from Cuba, $5.