Cloud of Dust
Santiago de Chile
11. September 1973
 
Giclée print on Hahnemühle FineArt Pearl paper.
Size 30x20 cm without white border.
 
“It is the day of the, amongst the foreign press long-expected coup d'état. President Allende and some government members are holding out in the Moneda Palace. Tanks had previously fired their cal.50 machine-guns at the façade of the government palace. But now the tanks had left. With my friend Sylvain I walked around to the other side of ‘La Moneda.’ We were promptly detained by a couple of bored soldiers. They called in, asking what to do with us. "Let them go", they were told. On our way back we heard jet engines! On the second approach of the jets, we there was the sound of bombing. Sylvain and I started running. As we turned into Moneda Street, a cloud of dust raced towards us. The Moneda Palace had been bombed.”

Dutch photojournalist Chas Gerretsen (1943) started his career as a combat photographer during the Vietnam War. As a photojournalist, he covered conflict zones in SE-Asia and South America.

In 1973, Gerretsen spent nine months in Santiago, Chile. His historic photographs cover the last year of the Allende government and the violent military coup that led to the Pinochet dictatorship. For his images of Chile 1973, Gerretsen received the prestigious ‘Robert Cape Gold Medal,’ the only Dutch photographer honored with this prize.

From 1975-89, Gerretsen was an advertising and portrait photographer in Hollywood, working on over a hundred films, such as ‘Apocalypse Now,’ ‘A Star is Born,’ ‘The Black Hole,’ and ‘Romancing the Stone.’ Gerretsen portrayed over 500 celebrities, stars like Dustin Hoffman, Helen Hunt, Jane Fonda, Jessica Lange, John Travolta, Marlon Brando, Susan Sarandon, and Tom Hanks, at home and in his studio.
 
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