Jerry Schatzberg: Cuba, 1959: View the Exhibition Online

In these never-before-exhibited photographs, artist and filmmaker Jerry Schatzberg transports viewers to Cuba in 1959.

Fidel Castro’s Communist Party had seized power that February following 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 American photographer in the city.

Schatzberg was given complete access to photograph Castro and his revolutionaries during their meetings, interviews, and leisure time. His photographs provide an intimate portrait of the iconic world leader and his government - as only a photographer like Schatzberg could capture.

"Spontaneity, candor, the feeling that you’re watching people... that can turn violent or tragic at the drop of a dime: this is Schatzberg’s territory."
-Carlos Valladares, "The Center of the Storm," Gagosian Quarterly (Winter 2019)