La Diana Cazadora

High on a fountain, bow drawn toward the sky, La Diana Cazadora aims without hesitating. Placed on Paseo de la Reforma in 1942, her original name was not Diana but “Flechadora de las Estrellas del Norte” — the Archer of the Northern Stars. Her creators, the architect Vicente Mendiola and the sculptor Juan Fernando Olaguibel, conceived a work that went beyond hunting to aim at the celestial sphere, though her nudity soon made her the center of a great public scandal.

At first, her naked figure scandalized the conservative society of the time, pushing groups such as the Liga de la Decencia to demand her immediate removal. The pressure was such that in 1944 the authorities chose to cover the statue with underwear, an act that was unanimously criticized and lasted only a few days, leaving the monument damaged in the attempt to strip the clothing off again. In the end the original work was removed and replaced by the replica admired today.

Behind this symbol of beauty and defiance, a secret was kept for more than fifty years: the identity of the model. Helvia Martínez Verdayes, at the time a young secretary at Pemex, was the muse who posed for Olaguibel. Fearing reprisals and the loss of her job, she kept her participation quiet, even as the statue became a landmark of the capital. Helvia's story is one of long waiting — a woman who saw her body immortalized as a symbol of strength, whose face was never added to the work, and whose contribution was only officially acknowledged decades later.

Among the traffic, the lights and the towers, her silhouette is a pause that recalls another kind of beauty: the kind that obeys no convention and that, proudly, always aims higher.