Fidel Castro speaking at the Teatro Chaplin, Havana

A member of the photographic cooperative Magnum, which enabled photographers to retain creative control of their images, René Burri traveled the world on reportage assignments. In 1963 he journeyed to Cuba for the American magazine Look—along with the French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, who was reporting for Life (no Americans were allowed entry)—and photographed Che Guevara and Fidel Castro as well as everyday citizens. This photograph of Castro, dwarfed by an arrangement of weapons and flowers, was included in Burri’s first one-man show, at the Art Institute in 1967; two years later, the museum acquired 24 of his photographs.