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One of the world's best know images began as a routine news photograph snapped by a young Cuban press photographer,
Alberto Díaz Gutiérrez, better known as Alberto Korda.
Korda, then 32, was on assignment at the time for the Cuban newspaper Revolución when he attended a funeral memorial ceremony
honoring victims of a mysterious and tragic explosion that had taken place in the Havana Harbor during the unloading of
military weapons off the French freighter, La Coubre.
Korda was sent to the ceremony specifically to photograph Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir who were attending as a
show of solidarity with the Communist Cuban regime, so this hurried shot of Che Guevera was not used and stayed in the
archives for years.
Who Was Che?
Che, or El Che, as he was known, was Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, a brilliant young Argentine Marxist revolutionary who had
joined Fidel Castro's revolution in 1956. After Castro seized power in 1959, Che served in several important positions in
the new government before leaving Cuba in 1965 to incite revolutions in Africa and South America and propagate his Marxist
ideas. He studied medical, but instead became a military theorist and guerrilla warfare strategist and fighter. Well
traveled and well educated, he was also a prolific writer, gifted but controversial politician, and a charismatic and
romantic example of a social revolutionary and outlaw fugitive.
Photo Image as Icon
The 1960 photo was not circulated until seven years after the death of Che in Bolivia in 1967 where he was captured and executed.
The Italian publisher of Gueverra's posthumous Bolivian Diary obtained rights to the photo for the book cover and printed
posters to promote the book.
The cropped black and white close-up image of the shadowed face of the handsome young revolutionary caught the imagination of
people of all ages, but was especially adopted as a symbol of youthful revolution in all its many forms. It has been copied
in graphic form and printed as photos on canvas and on everything else from T-shirts to toothbrushes.
Various versions of the image have been used over the years by printers and artists, including Andy Warhol so that even the
photographic style has become iconic. A photo on canvas print in the 'style of Che' is as recognizable today as it was in
the Sixties.
Korda, Photographer
Korda, a lifelong Communist, never asked for the royalties due him as the photographer and encouraged the spread of the free image
worldwide as a symbol of Marxism, but he objected when it was used by an ad agency for a Smirnoff vodka advertisement in 2000.
He won a settlement of $50,000 which he donated to a Cuban medical charity.
After the revolution, Korda spent the next twelve years as the Cuban president Fidel Castro's personal photographer.
Later in his career he specialized in underwater photography and gained some international fame, but is mainly known
for his image of Che Gueverra.
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