diff --git a/CHANGES b/CHANGES
index b7987975d..7c1692dbe 100644
--- a/CHANGES
+++ b/CHANGES
@@ -51,6 +51,7 @@ Bugs fixed
 * #2501: Unicode subscript numbers are normalized in LaTeX
 * #2492: Figure directive with :figwidth: generates incorrect Latex-code
 * The caption of figure is always put on center even if ``:align:`` was specified
+* #2526: LaTeX writer crashes if the section having only images
 
 
 Release 1.4.1 (released Apr 12, 2016)
diff --git a/sphinx/writers/latex.py b/sphinx/writers/latex.py
index 8a1d40722..692e5c509 100644
--- a/sphinx/writers/latex.py
+++ b/sphinx/writers/latex.py
@@ -782,7 +782,8 @@ class LaTeXTranslator(nodes.NodeVisitor):
         elif isinstance(parent, nodes.section):
             short = ''
             if node.traverse(nodes.image):
-                short = '[%s]' % ' '.join(clean_astext(node).split()).translate(tex_escape_map)
+                short = ('[%s]' %
+                         u' '.join(clean_astext(node).split()).translate(tex_escape_map))
 
             try:
                 self.body.append(r'\%s%s{' % (self.sectionnames[self.sectionlevel], short))
diff --git a/tests/roots/test-image-in-section/index.rst b/tests/roots/test-image-in-section/index.rst
index a69db0a77..08416d671 100644
--- a/tests/roots/test-image-in-section/index.rst
+++ b/tests/roots/test-image-in-section/index.rst
@@ -16,3 +16,7 @@ another blah
 Other [blah] |picture| section
 ------------------------------
 other blah
+
+|picture|
+---------
+blah blah blah