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).
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