Ernest Hemingway and Walker Evans:
Three Weeks in Cuba, 1933
Organized by the Key West Museum of Art and History at the Custom House, Florida
Cuban Bohio, 1933
Havana Citizen, 1933
Havana: Country Family, 1933
Girl Behind Barred Window, Havana, 1933
In May 1933, a profound friendship developed between American photographer Walker Evans and writer Ernest Hemingway during a three-week stay in Havana, Cuba. Their shared experiences—political unrest, nightly discussions, and artistic exchange—deeply influenced both men.
Evans was in Cuba photographing for The Crime of Cuba, a critique of dictator Machado, while Hemingway was fishing and writing. Fearing surveillance, Evans reportedly entrusted some photographs to Hemingway, a story confirmed by newly found documents. These long-lost images, along with Hemingway’s letters and personal artifacts, now form the core of a new museum exhibition.
The display recreates 1930s Havana and explores how this pivotal time shaped their work—Evans’s photography and Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not. The exhibition offers insights into their collaboration and creative influence on one another, supported by an immersive audio tour in English and Spanish with period music and sound effects, transporting visitors to revolutionary, rumba-filled Havana.
WORKS
50 photographs, 20 objects and various exhibit elements
DIMENSIONS
21 x 17 (inches)
SPACE REQUIREMENTS
Aprox. 300 linear feet
INQUIRIES
exhibitions@curatorial.org
626.577.0044