12th Oct, 2019 16:00

OstLicht Photo Auction Autumn 2019

 
  Lot 66
 

RENÉ BURRI (1933–2014)
‘Che Guevara y su tabaco’, Cuba 1963

Sold for €3,200


Lot details

Estimate: € 5.000–6.000

Gelatin silver print, printed in 2007

38 x 25,4 cm

Signed, annotated and dated by the photographer in pencil on the reverse

PROVENANCE acquired by the present owner directly from the photographer

LITERATURE L. Bergquist, Most revealing Report on Cuba since the missile Crisis, in: LOOK, April 9, 1963; Hans-Michael Koetzle, René Burri. Fotografien, Berlin 2003, p. 226 (same series).; Hans-M. Koetzle, Photo-Icons 1827-1991, Cologne 2005, p. 264 (same series).

Four years after the Cuban revolution in 1959, Magnum sent René Burri to Cuba to take photographs of Ernesto »Che« Guevara during an interview for the widely circulated American magazine Look. As President of the National Bank and Minister of Industry, Che Guevara was the second most powerful man in Cuba and had personally invited the American star journalist Laura Bergquist to the Sugar Island so that she could form her own opinion about the success of the revolution. In retrospect, Burri would describe the atmosphere of the conversation as »tense«. Right at the start, Che denied Burri his request to open the blinds to improve the lighting situation in the room. Furthermore, he would not deign to look at Burri during the three-hour interview, during which the photographer exposed six rolls of film. »I could expose all of his characteristics: charm, power of persuasion and anger. But he did not look into the camera one single time.«

Start price: €2.800