Juan José Sicre was one of the greatest Cuban sculptors. His most famous sculpture is of José Martí y Pérez (1958)

José Martí

José Julián Martí Pérez was a Cuban national hero and an important figure in Latin American literature. In his short life he was a poet, an essayist, a journalist, a revolutionary philosopher, a translator, a professor, a publisher, and a political theorist. He was also a part of the Cuban...

 (the José Martí Memorial

José Martí Memorial

The José Martí Memorial is a memorial to José Martí, the national hero of Cuba, located on the northern side of the Plaza de la Revolución in the Vedado area of Havana...

) in the Plaza de la Revolución

Plaza de la Revolucion

Plaza de la Revolución is a municipality and a square in Havana, Cuba.The municipality stretches from the square down to the sea at the Malecón and includes the Vedado district.- Square :...

 in Havana

Havana

Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...

.

Sicre graduated from an art academy in Havana in 1919 and earned an art scholarship to go to Europe where he studied in Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

 at the Fine Arts School of San Fernando in and later under Antoine Bourdelle

Antoine Bourdelle

Antoine Bourdelle , originally Émile Antoine Bourdelle, was an influential and prolific French sculptor, painter, and teacher.-Career:...

 in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, returning to Cuba in 1927.

Sicre, along with Gattorno and the painter Victor Manuel introduced European modern art style to Havana, and began Cuba's Modern Art Movement. He regularly contributed to the avant garde magazine, revista de avance, which helped to establish a Cuban national identity in the arts from 1927-1930. Sicre became the professor of sculpture at the Academy of San Alejandro.
He is best known in Cuba for his huge monuments to José Martí, Simón Bolívar

Simón Bolívar

Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Yeiter, commonly known as Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan military and political leader...

, and Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo

Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....

, all located in Havana. He also did statues of Eugenio María de Hostos

Eugenio María de Hostos

Eugenio María de Hostos known as "El Ciudadano de América" , was a Puerto Rican educator, philosopher, intellectual, lawyer, sociologist and independence advocate....

 in the Dominican Republic

Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...

 and of Alexandre Sabès Pétion and the Heroes of the Battle of Vertières

Battle of Vertières

The Battle of Vertières , the last major battle of the Second War of Haitian Independence, the final part of the Haitian Revolution under François Capois. It was fought between Haitian rebels and French expeditionary forces on 18 November 1803 at Vertières...

 in Haiti

Haiti

Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...

. In the United States he has a bust of John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

 at the Inter-American Development Bank

Inter-American Development Bank

The Inter-American Development Bank is the largest source of development financing for Latin America and the Caribbean...

. He also has in Washington, DC busts of Henry Clay

Henry Clay

Henry Clay, Sr. , was a lawyer, politician and skilled orator who represented Kentucky separately in both the Senate and in the House of Representatives...

, José Cecilio del Valle

José Cecilio del Valle

José Cecilio Diaz del Valle was a philosopher, politician, lawyer, and journalist and one of the most important figures in Central America during the transition from colonial government to independence, displaying a wide-ranging expertise in public administration management.Valle nicknmed 'The...

 and Rubén Darío

Rubén Darío

Félix Rubén García Sarmiento , known as Rubén Darío, was a Nicaraguan poet who initiated the Spanish-American literary movement known as modernismo that flourished at the end of the 19th century...

 at the OAS

Organization of American States

The Organization of American States is a regional international organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States...

 Building. In Gainesville

Gainesville, Florida

Gainesville is the largest city in, and the county seat of, Alachua County, Florida, United States as well as the principal city of the Gainesville, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area . The preliminary 2010 Census population count for Gainesville is 124,354. Gainesville is home to the sixth...

, Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

, there is a bronze head of Martí at the Center of Latin American Studies of the University of Florida

University of Florida

The University of Florida is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a campus in Gainesville, Florida. The university traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September 1906...

. In Caracas

Caracas

Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...

, Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

, he produced a monument to Rómulo Gallegos

Rómulo Gallegos

Rómulo Ángel del Monte Carmelo Gallegos Freire was a Venezuelan novelist and politician. For a period of some nine months during 1948, he was the first cleanly elected president in his country's history....

.

He was married to Silvia D. Escoubet and their son, Jorge Sicre Escoubet, lived in Cleveland, Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

 and played with the orchestra and his grandson, Jorge Luis Sicre-Gattorno (1958- ), is an accomplished painter in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.