The remarkable photos of the series “El Último Cabildo de Yemayá” (The Last Cabildo* of Yemayá) were taken in the town of Regla in Havana on September 9, 1961, by Roberto Salas Merino, a 20 year old man who had arrived in Havana in 1959 from New York. Born in that American city on November 16, 1940, of Cuban parents, Roberto learned the essentials of the trade from his father, the experienced photographer Osvaldo Salas (1914-1992), who had a studio in the Bronx. Osvaldo Salas and his son, Roberto, later known as “Salitas”, returned to Cuba at the triumph of the Revolution and very soon they joined the legendary army of photographers who started to document passionately and exhaustively the multiple events and main protagonists of the most transcendental social and political event in Cuba during the second half of the 20th century: the Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro.
Extracted from the catalogue "Roberto Salas: The Last Cabildo of Yemayá" available for download here