From the Highsmith Archive: Cuba, Part 2

Of the 416 photographs of Cuba in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive at the Library of Congress, a number are images of art in public places, from amateur murals to sculpture to funerary statues. Here are some examples.

Credit line for each photograph should read: The Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Mural showing the Cuban flag and Che Guevara. LC--DIG-highsm-06012

Dragones Street, in the Chinatown section of Havana, Cuba. LC-DIG-highsm-06070

From the Carol M. Highsmith Archive: Havana, Cuba

Early in 2010, before arriving in Alabama to document life in that state in the early 21st century, photographer Carol Highsmith added to her archive at the Library of Congress 416 photographs of contemporary Havana, Cuba. Her subjects include 16th century Morro Castle and Castillo de la Real Fuerza,  and  interiors and exterior views of well-preserved, palatial buildings, e.g. the nation’s capitol (“El Capitolio”), alongside examples of deteriorating buildings bearing remanants of their former architectural grandeur. In a second post I’ll show you examples of her photos of public art in Havana.

Credit line for each photograph should read:

The Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Havana, Cuba. LC-DIG-highsm-06188

Castillo de la Real Fuerza, Havana, Cuba. After Havana was destroyed in 1555 by the French pirate Jacques de Sores, the Spanish Crown built a more solid fortress to replace the original, ineffectual tower known as La Fuezza Vieja. In 1558 they began work on Castillo de la Real Fuerza. It was completed in 1577. There is a moat that surrounds the fortress and a drawbridge leading the to main building. It was restored in 1963 and is a museum. LC-DIG-highsm-06057

One Down, 49 To Go: Carol Highsmith’s Images of Alabama Now Online at the Library of Congress

I first wrote about Carol Highsmith two years ago when I asked, Is Carol M. Highsmith the Most Generous Artist of Our Time? after coming across her archive at the  Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs Online Catalog and learning that eventually she will have provided the public an estimated 100,000 images for their personal, educational, or commercial use — all for the price of a credit line.

Then last year I told you Carol Highsmith was in Alabama, working on a project for the Library of Congress, the 21st Century America Collection. Her goal is to document in digital images life in each state so that future generations will have an idea of what America was like in the first decades of this century. She was able to get going on this project because of the generosity of businessman and philanthropist George F. Landegger, who funded the Alabama collection.

Carol spent much of 2010 traveling over 20,000 miles up, down, across, and around the state of Alabama, and now the George F. Landegger Alabama Library of Congress Collection is completed and up for your viewing at the Library of Congress.

Now Carol is hard at work with the 21st Century America Foundation, Inc., a “priority initiative” of the Library of Congress, looking for funding to get to work on her next state. Which one remains to be seen, but I’ll let you know as soon as I can. Meanwhile, time for the pictures.

Credit lines for each of these public domain images should read: The George F. Landegger Collection of Alabama Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

The Alabama Theatre was built in 1927 by Paramount Studios in Birmingham, Alabama as a showcase for Paramount films.

Dauphin Island, Alabama