Guerrillero Heroico is an iconic photograph of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara taken by Alberto Korda. It was captured on March 5, 1960, in Havana, Cuba, at a memorial service for victims of the La Coubre explosion. By the end of the 1960s, the image, in conjunction with Guevara's subsequent actions and eventual execution, helped solidify the leader as a cultural icon. Korda has said that at the moment he shot the picture, he was drawn to Guevara's facial expression, which showed "absolute implacability" as well as anger and pain. Years later, Korda would say that the photograph showed Che's firm and stoic character. Guevara was 31 years old at the time the photograph was taken.
Alberto Korda's photograph of Che Guevara
The original image, from which the popularized portrait was derived. By cropping out a palm tree and the profile of Jorge Masetti, increasing the contrast, and making other slight adjustments, Korda gave Guevara's image "an ageless quality, divorced from the specifics of time and place."
Che Guevara (third from left) and Fidel Castro (far left) marching to Colón Cemetery.
Korda's film contact sheet. Guerrillero Heroico appears on the fourth row down, third picture over (shot horizontally).
Ernesto "Che" Guevara was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia in popular culture.
Guerrillero Heroico, 1960
A teenage Ernesto (left) with his parents and siblings, c. 1944, seated beside him from left to right: Celia (mother), Celia (sister), Roberto, Juan Martín, Ernesto (father) and Ana María
Guevara (right) with Alberto Granado (left) in June 1952 on the Amazon River aboard their "Mambo-Tango" wooden raft, which was a gift from the lepers whom they had treated
Guevara with his first wife Hilda Gadea at Chichen Itza during their honeymoon trip
