This is from google AI search:
The "Guerrillero Heroico" photograph of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, captured by Alberto Korda on March 5, 1960, achieved global fame through a blend of compelling visual composition and tragic timing. Taken from a low angle during a memorial service in Havana, Korda's vertical crop isolated Guevara against a plain background, focusing entirely on his intense, distant gaze and unkempt hair beneath a commander's star. This striking portrait perfectly crystallized the romantic archetype of a revolutionary. However, the image remained largely obscure until 1967, when Che was executed in Bolivia. Italian publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli immediately printed and distributed thousands of massive posters across Europe, capitalizing on the peak media attention and transforming the photo into a visual monument to a fallen icon.
The photograph quickly morphed into a universal graphic emblem when Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick stylized it into a stark, two-tone black and red stencil. This high-contrast graphic became the primary visual anchor for the 1968 global student uprisings, anti-Vietnam War protests, and radical civil rights movements. Because Cuba did not adhere to international copyright treaties at the time, the image effectively entered the public domain, allowing anyone to print it freely. This lack of legal restriction permitted the graphic to be endlessly reproduced on t-shirts, flags, and consumer products, permanently embedding it into global pop culture as the ultimate, commercialized symbol of anti-establishment defiance.
References:
https://www.cortissonderegger.ch/guerrillero-heroico
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-global-history/article/abs/resurrecting-che-radicalism-the-transnational-imagination-and-the-politics-of-heroes/A9769A10F38E5F5ED1B8F996687D638C
