Original Vintage Gelatin Silver Print. Attributed to Luis Korda.

Taken in January 1959, just eight days after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, this powerful image captures Fidel Castro and Camilo Cienfuegos entering Havana as victorious guerrillas. The moment is charged with momentum: rifles slung over shoulders, wind against their uniforms, expressions fixed somewhere between exhaustion and destiny.

Photographed by Luis Korda — elder brother of Alberto Korda and co-founder of their Havana studio — this image stands among the defining visual records of the revolution’s decisive hour. While Alberto’s lens immortalized Che, Luis documented the kinetic immediacy of the revolution in motion.

Castro, intense and focused, leans forward.

Cienfuegos, charismatic and unmistakable beneath his broad-brimmed hat, turns toward him mid-conversation.

It is not staged. It is not posed. It is the revolution arriving.

Camilo Cienfuegos — who would disappear mysteriously later that same year — appears here at the height of triumph. Within months, the image would take on elegiac resonance.

Cienfuegos was not just another comandante. In 1959 he was arguably the most beloved figure of the revolution — charismatic, informal, approachable. Cubans called him “El Señor de la Vanguardia” — the Lord of the Vanguard. His broad-brimmed hat, easy smile, and plainspoken manner made him immensely popular with ordinary citizens. When he disappeared on October 28, 1959, his small plane vanished over the sea while flying from Camagüey to Havana. No confirmed wreckage was ever recovered. That mystery created decades of speculation. There is no verified historical evidence proving that Fidel Castro ordered his assassination. The official Cuban position has always been that the disappearance was an aviation accident due to bad weather. However, because:

Cienfuegos was extraordinarily popular

He reportedly had disagreements with certain internal security measures

His death removed a powerful and charismatic figure early in the revolutionary government - speculation emerged almost immediately, especially among exile communities and later historians.

His death has remained one of the enduring enigmas of the revolution, fueling decades of debate and speculation.

This image represents the precise moment insurgency became governance. The revolution had succeeded; Havana was theirs. Within months, Cuba would realign geopolitically and reshape Cold War dynamics across the Western Hemisphere.

This original oversized gelatin silver photograph (23.5 x 19.25 inches) possesses commanding presence. The scale amplifies the texture of fatigues, the grain of mid-century Cuban photographic paper, and the sculptural contrast of light and shadow. The tonal range — deep blacks against luminous highlights - is characteristic of period silver gelatin production.