[abeautifulnight]

I met Jim Fitzpatrick at the weekend and had a chance to ask him about the original Che image which has been used by every one from Banksy & D'face to Warhol & Obey.

He told me he was organising a screen print edition in the winter and that Korda and himself now owned the rights

Here some info on the piece.

Alberto Korda's famous photograph of Che Guevara was taken on March 5, 1960 at a Cuban funeral service for victims of the La Coubre explosion, but was published seven years later. Guevara was 31 at the time of the photo. The Maryland Institute College of Art called Korda's photo, "The most famous photograph in the world and a symbol of the 20th century."

Korda used a Leica loaded with Kodak Plus-X. On the same film there were photos of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir that were at that time much more valuable for Cuban newspapers and the photo was not published. Yet Korda made a small cropped print for himself.



Symbol of the '60s

Jim Fitzpatrick's version of the photo
The photo became famous only seven years later after the death of Guevara in Bolivia, when Italian publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli obtained the rights to publish Guevara's Bolivian Diary and published the image as a large poster. Feltrinelli had obtained prints from Korda a few months before Guevara's death. It was originally planned to use the picture for the cover of the Italian edition of the diary.

The high contrast bust drawing that is based on the photo was made in 1968 in several variations—some in red and black, others in black and white and some in black and white with a red star—by Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick, an artist most known for his depictions of Irish mythology. Fitzpatrick had received a copy of a print of the photo from a group of Dutch anarchists in 1965. Some believe that the source of this print is Jean-Paul Sartre.

A modified version of the portrait has been reproduced on a range of different media, though Korda never asked for royalties as he reasoned that Che's image represented his revolutionary ideals. The more his picture spread the greater the chance Che's ideals would spread. It wasn't until the year 2000 that Korda took action. In response to a company using Che's picture to sell vodka Korda sued advertising agency Lowe Lintas, and Rex Features, the company that supplied the photograph. He was able to affirm his ownership of the photo and won an out-of-court settlement of $50,000.

Influence on art

Another version of Korda's photographFitzpatrick's graphic was later used in a painting attributed to Andy Warhol with the same graphic processes that he used on Marilyn Monroe pictures. However this painting is forgery allegedly created by Gerard Malanga and when Warhol heard of the fraud, he shrewdly authenticated the fake - providing, of course, that all the money from sales went to him. Since then the image has appeared on countless posters, T-shirts, mugs, stickers, etc. and has become an icon for a new generation of youth in alternative culture. The image is now worn on the chests of a diverse group, from those who truly support the ideals that Che Guevara lived for (usually an image closer to the original picture); to those expressing a more generalized anti-authoritarian stance; to apolitical youths who may have little or no knowledge of the symbolism or history of Che Guevara. Third in the line of succession to the British Throne, Prince Harry, was photographed wearing the image on a T-shirt whilst socialising in London in 2005.