Jerry Schatzberg: Havana Cuba, 1959: Presented as part of the Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival

In this never-before-exhibited series of photographs, Jerry Schatzberg transports the viewer to a pivotal point in history at the end of the Cuban Revolution in 1959. Fidel Castro’s Communist Party had seized power that February, overthrowing the previous government in a widely-publicized guerrilla war. Schatzberg arrived in Havana shortly after, wearing a black suit and looking out-of-place as the first and only photographer from the United States. Castro’s bodyguards nicknamed him “El Toro,” saying he looked like a bullfighter.

 

Photographing for a small magazine called Fashion and Travel over the course of several weeks, Schatzberg was given complete freedom and access to photograph Castro and his revolutionaries during their meetings, interviews, and leisure time throughout the city of Havana. These intimate, relaxed photographs provide an alternative image of the iconic world leader and his government, as only a photographer like Schatzberg could capture.