The image has been infinitely repeated —emblazoned on T-shirts and sprayed on to walls, transformed into pop art and used to wrap ice-creams and sell cigarettes - and its appeal has not faded.

 “There is no other image like it. What other image has been sustained in this way?” asks Trisha Ziff, the curator of a touring exhibition on the iconography of Che. “Che Guevara has become a brand. And the brand’s logo is the image, which represents change.”

The unchecked proliferation of the picture — based on a photograph taken by Alberto Korda in 1960 — is partly due to a political choice by Korda and others not to demand payment for non-commercial use of the image.

Jim Fitzpatrick, who produced the ubiquitous high-contrast drawing in the late 1960s as a young graphic artist, told the BBC News website he actively wanted his art to be disseminated.

“I deliberately designed it to breed like rabbits,” he says of his image, which removes the original photograph’s shadows and volume to create a stark and emblematic graphic portrait. “The way they killed him, there was to be no memorial, no place of pilgrimage, nothing. I was determined that the image should receive the broadest possible circulation. His image will never die, his name will never die.”

For Ms Ziff, Che Guevara’s murder also marks the beginning of the mythical image.

“The birth of the image happens at the death of Che in October 1967,” she says. “He was good-looking, he was young, but more than that, he died for his ideals, so he automatically becomes an icon.”

The story of the original photograph, of how it left Cuba and was carried by admirers to Europe before being reinterpreted in Mr Fitzpatrick’s iconic drawing, is a fascinating journey in its own right.

Alberto Korda captured his famous frame on 5 March 1960 during a mass funeral in Havana. A day earlier, a French cargo ship loaded with ammunition had exploded in the city’s harbour, killing some 80 Cubans — an act Fidel Castro blamed on the US.

Korda, Fidel Castro’s official photographer, describes Che’s expression in the picture, which he labelled “Guerrillero Heroico” (the heroic fighter), as “encabronadao y dolente” — angry and sad.

The picture was one of only two frames taken. The original shot includes palm fronds and a man facing Che, both subsequently cropped out. Unpublished for a year, the picture was seen only by those who passed through Korda’s studio, where it hung on a wall.

One man who brought the image to Europe was the leftist Italian publisher and intellectual, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, who distributed posters across Italy in 1967. After that, Korda’s photograph made an appearance in several European magazines. Mr Fitzpatrick first came across it in the German weekly, Stern.

Only months later, when he finally got his hands on a larger version of the photograph, was he able to produce the image that has such universal appeal.

After Che Guevara’s death, an outraged Mr Fitzpatrick furiously reprinted originals of the poster and sent it to left-wing political activist groups across Europe. Part of his anger stemmed from vivid memories working behind a bar in Ireland as a teenager, and seeing Che walk in. The revolutionary was briefly exploring the homeland of his Irish ancestors — the full family name was Guevara-Lynch — during a stopover on a flight to Moscow.

As time went on, the image began to be used as a decoration for products from tissues to underwear. Unilever even brought out a Che version of the Magnum ice cream in Australia — flavoured with cherry and guava.

But in Latin America, Ms Ziff points out; Che Guevara’s face remains a symbol of armed revolution and indigenous struggle. Indeed, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez often appears wearing a Che T-shirt and visitors to the offices of Bolivia’s leader, Evo Morales, are reportedly greeted with a version of the iconic image fashioned from coca leaves.

BBC News