Raquel Lazaro

In loving memory of Raquel Lázaro whom the Lord called to His Kingdom on May 13, 2020.  Raquel lived a long and productive life.  She was born in Havana, Cuba on November 10, 1917.  Notwithstanding her advanced age, she was a young 102 year-old, of generous spirit and always with a kind word to all whom she encountered.  She was a loving and warm soul secured in the conviction that altruism was the highest of all the virtues.   Raquel stood for human rights and fled Cuba shortly after the Communist revolution in that country.  She was a world-class artist.  As early as 1956, her paintings were shown in the most prestigious venues in Cuba and throughout Latin America.  During her years in Miami, however, her work blossomed.  Raquel’s paintings fused the past, present, and the future in a timeless and wordless narrative that liberated both the spirit and the imagination of the spectator.  Her representational art took the viewer to a world beyond the laws of nature, one where vibrant colors and whimsicality defined all things that are. She trained the spectator to embrace aesthetic and existential hope far beyond the immediate and the mundane much like other artistic greats such as Paul Klee and Marc Chagall, but with very unique and personal themes, images, and a peerless application of color to canvas. Her work forms part of some of the most prestigious public and private art collections in the world, including the Museum of Modern Art of Latin America in Washington, D.C. Raquel Lázaro was a great artist.  But she was an even greater human being.  Raquel was generous to young artists without a profit motive.  She was a friend to all.  Raquel always made time to care for others and, she cared for her siblings much like a mother until each was called to pass from this world.  She cared for the sick, the elderly, and the young alike.  Raquel never had children and outlived all family members.  But she is survived by the many thousands whose lives were enriched and elevated by her art.  Raquel also is survived by all who knew her.  She was an example of virtue.  Raquel declined numerous invitations to show her art in Cuba, at great personal cost, under the thinking that it would have been duplicitous to engage in a personal exhibit at the National Museum while twelve million Cuban citizens languished in poverty, bereft of all liberties.   Raquel made the world a better place.  She shall be missed.  Rest in peace.