Luis Korda


Luis Antonio Peirce Byers, known as Korda, was a Cuban photographer.

Biography

The son of a North American miner and a Jamaican mother, Luis Antonio Peirce Byres was born in Manzanillo, Cuba. In 1956 he founded the Havana photography studio Korda Studios with Alberto Díaz Gutiérrez. The name of the company came from the famous Hungarian-British film directors Alexander and Zoltan Korda, and both photographers came to be known by the name: Luis was known as Korda the Elder and Alberto as Korda the Younger. The range of work by the company spanned fashion and traditional advertising shoots, as well as shoots for recording labels, insurance, pharmaceuticals, promotional work for Bacardi and Hatuey, car dealerships etc. Photo journalism was also part of the studio’s output, reporting, for example, on the most famous Cuban motor racing event, the Carrera from Oinar del Rio via Saua la Grande to Havanna. By October 1956 the two photographers had relocated their studio to apartment 2, on the first floor of a building just opposite the emerging Hotel Capri on Calle 21, along with any negatives relating to the Revolution. Yet two years later, on 14 March 1968, in the absence of the two Kordas, the company was officially closed as part of the last wave of nationalisation; the artwork was seized and given to the Oficina de Asuntos Historicos. The majority of the commercial and fashion photographs by Alberto, Luis and their later associate Genovevo Vasquez were lost, and with them an important and hitherto little-understood chapter in the history of Cuban photography.
After the closure of Korda Studios, Luis Korda worked for the satirical weekly magazine Palante and for the weekly magazine Bohemia. He died in Havana.

Literature