Tuesday, March 20, 2018

CHE GUEVARA RETURNS – THE NOSTALGIA OF PROTEST AND PASSION




Due to unprecedented demand An Post in Ireland has issued a second print run of the Che Guevara €1 stamp. The was first print run of 122,000 was issued on the 5th October 2017 and quickly taken up. I managed to pick up a sheet today from the local post office and am really delighted. The stamp, based on Jim Fitzpatrick’s iconic design from 1967, brings back so many memories of a time when many of my generation were trying desperately to "discover" each other and your man, the Guerrillero Heroica got to supervise much of our inept joy as he stared down at us from the walls of bedsits throughout the country and beyond. The picture caught the zeitgeist of the times for many of us, a Woodstock field that existed somewhere between protest and passion.


Jim Fitzpatrick produced a 2-colour print (the star on the hat was hand-painted yellow by him) based on a  March 5, 1960 photo of Che Guevara on the Malecón in Havana, by Alberto Korda, Castro’s official photographer. Like Korda, Fitzpatrick did not initially establish copyright and claim royalties on the picture, but like Korda once he had later re-established copyright in 2008 he donated all royalties into supporting the Cuban health care system.



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