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Cuba Libre: 1959

by Charles Harbutt

On New Year's Day, 1959, the news broke that Cuba's brutal dictator Batista had fled the country, looting it as he went. In the hills of the Sierra Maestra, the 32-year-old rebel leader, Fidel Castro, prepared his triumphal arrival in Havana, the capital.

Charles Harbutt, then 23 years old, covered those first heady days in the city. An American photography magazine had recommended his work to the Castro movement, which invited him to photograph the revolution in Cuba, and by January 2 he was in Havana. Cuba Libre 1959 catalogues the photographs of his first extraordinary week in the city.

Harbutt's eye and his sympathy for the people in front of his camera stand out as enthralling and revelatory. His photos evoke the moment, the place and the euphoria that swept the people of Cuba in that brief and turbulent time. Six months later he was back in Havana to cover an American company's sales convention. Harbutt has juxtaposed these images to offer a profound and dynamic insight into the political and cultural gulf between the United States and Cuba.

To be published October 2005 by Trolley Press, Ltd.