Andrew Lopez, 76; Photographer and Pulitzer Prize Winner
Andrew Lopez, whose photograph of a kneeling man clutching a crucifix as he awaited execution gave the world a vivid look at the dark side of Fidel Castro’s revolution, died Thursday of cancer.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer and holder of the Medal of Freedom was 76 and had slipped into a coma on Saturday.
Lopez captured journalism’s most prestigious award for his dramatic photo taken Jan. 17, 1959, during the Cuban Revolution. It showed a Batista loyalist kneeling and holding a crucifix as a priest blessed him and gunmen waited to execute him.
Lopez was in Cuba for United Press International when Castro first came to power.
Lopez was born May 10, 1910, in Spain and came to the United States when he was 4.
He won the Medal of Freedom, the highest award that can be bestowed on a citizen, for helping rescue several soldiers who had been caught in a German trap in World War II. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower gave Lopez the award in 1947.
Lopez, who taught himself how to take pictures with a box camera, worked as a war correspondent in Europe during World War II and his assignments included Italy, Normandy and Germany.
He retired from UPI in July, 1983, and moved to Florida with his wife.
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