How a Photo Became an Icon

Here is a history of how a picture snapped at a funeral became one of the best known images in the history of photography. The piece is a review of a new book, Che aboard a freighter docked in Havana. Korda radically cropped his image to focus of the charisma of the revolutionary. Later, Andy Warhol turned the image into art (above).

By Popphoto Staff on April 21, 2009

Here is a history of how a picture snapped at a funeral became one of the best known images in the history of photography. The piece is a review of a new book, Che's Afterlife: The Legacy of an Image, by Michael Casey. In 1960, Cuban photographer Alberto Díaz Gutiérrez (better known as Korda) photographed Ernesto Guevarva at a funeral for victims of an explosion aboard a freighter docked in Havana. Korda radically cropped his image to focus of the charisma of the revolutionary. Later, Andy Warhol turned the image into art (above). It's a fascinating tale of what can happen when a photograph is subsumed by cultural forces.--David Schonauer