Focus on this artwork and explore the Use in Cuba.
Cuban historian Edmundo Desnoes has stated that "Che's image may be cast aside, bought and sold and deified, but it will form a part of the universal system of the revolutionary struggle, and can recover its original meaning at any moment." That meaning's origin harkens back to when Korda's photograph was first published on April 16, 1961, in the daily Cuban newspaper Revolución, advertising a noon conference during which the main speaker was "Dr. Ernesto 'Che' Guevara". The conference was disrupted when 1,300 CIA-supported counter-revolutionaries stormed the beaches of Cuba, in what became known as the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. The image was thus republished a second time advertising the newly convened conference on April 28, 1961. Che, who died six years later, could have seen the photograph that would contribute to his iconic status.The first time Cubans on a large scale became familiar with the photograph, despite its earlier reproduction in Revolución, was upon Che's death in 1967. Upon the news of Che's execution, it was enlarged and draped on a banner down the five-story building of the Ministry of the Interior in the Plaza de la Revolución in Havana. This building where Che himself had formerly worked served as a backdrop to Fidel's eulogy on October 18, 1967, publicly acknowledging the death of Che Guevara before a crowd of more than a million mourners. José Gómez Fresquet, renowned Cuban poster maker and graphic artist, recalls how on hearing the news of Guevara's death, he immediately worked all night producing the poster to be used at the rally honoring him the next day. Korda had given Fresquet a copy of the portrait as a basis for the poster, which he created on red paper. This was the first privately produced Guerrillero Heroico created in Cuba. Since then the building has seen many versions of the image, and today a permanent steel outline, derived from the photograph, adorns the building.
Havana Che Guevara Plaza de la Revolución deified photograph Cuba revolutionary Bay of Pigs invasion Fidel's CIA