Yousuf Karsh
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encyclopedia)
Yousuf Karsh (December 23,
1908 – July 13, 2002) was a Canadian photographer of Armenian heritage,
and one of the most famous and accomplished portrait photographers of all
time.
Yousuf or Josuf (his given Armenian name was Hovsep) Karsh was born in
Mardin, a city in the eastern Ottoman Empire (currently in Turkey). He
grew up during the Armenian Genocide where he wrote, "I saw relatives
massacred; my sister died of starvation as we were driven from village to
village." At the age of 14, he fled with his family to Syria to escape
persecution. Two years later, his parents sent Yousuf to live with his
uncle George Nakash, a photographer in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. Karsh
briefly attended school there and assisted in his uncle’s studio. Nakash
saw great potential in his nephew and in 1928 arranged for Karsh to
apprentice with portrait photographer John Garo in Boston, United States.
His brother, Malak Karsh, was also a photographer famous for the image of
logs floating down the river on the Canadian one dollar bill.
Karsh returned to Canada four years later, eager to make his mark. He
established a studio on Sparks Street in Ottawa, Ontario, close to
Canada’s seat of government. Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King
discovered Karsh and arranged introductions with visiting dignitaries for
portrait sittings. Karsh's work attracted the attention of varied
celebrities, but his place in history was sealed on 30 December, 1941 when
he photographed Winston Churchill after Churchill gave a speech to
Canadian House of Commons in Ottawa.
The image of Churchill brought Karsh international prominence, and is
claimed to be the most reproduced photographic portrait in history. In
1967, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and in 1990 was
promoted to Companion.
Of the 100 most notable people of the century, named by the International
Who’s Who [2000], Karsh had photographed 51. Karsh was also the only
Canadian to make the list.
In the late 90s he moved to Boston and on July 13, 2002 (He was 93 years
old) Karsh died at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital after
complications following surgery. He was interred in Notre Dame Cemetery in
Ottawa. Karsh was a master of studio lights. One of Karsh's distinctive
practices was lighting the subject's hands separately. He photographed
many of the great and celebrated personalities of his generation.
Throughout most of his career he used the 8×10 bellows Calumet (1997.0319)
camera, made circa 1940 in Chicago. Journalist George Perry wrote in the
British paper The Sunday Times that "when the famous start thinking of
immortality, they call for Karsh of Ottawa."
Karsh had a gift for capturing the essence of his subject in the instant
of his portrait. As Karsh wrote of his own work in Karsh Portfolio in
1967, "Within every man and woman a secret is hidden, and as a
photographer it is my task to reveal it if I can. The revelation, if it
comes at all, will come in a small fraction of a second with an
unconscious gesture, a gleam of the eye, a brief lifting of the mask that
all humans wear to conceal their innermost selves from the world. In that
fleeting interval of opportunity the photographer must act or lose his
prize."
Karsh said "My chief joy is to photograph the great in heart, in mind, and
in spirit, whether they be famous or humble." His work is in the permanent
collections of the National Gallery of Canada, New York's Museum of Modern
Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art, George Eastman House International
Museum of Photography and Film, Bibliotheque nationale de France, the
National Portrait Gallery in London, the National Portrait Gallery of
Australia and many others. Library and Archives Canada holds his complete
collection, including negatives, prints and documents. His photographic
equipment was donated to the Canada Science and Technology Museum in
Ottawa.
Karsh published 15 books of his photographs, which include brief
descriptions of the sessions, during which he would ask questions and talk
with his subjects to relax them as he composed the portrait. Some famous
subjects photographed by Karsh were Albert Einstein, Albert Schweitzer,
Alexander Calder, Andy Warhol, Audrey Hepburn, Clark Gable, Dwight
Eisenhower, Ernest Hemingway, Fidel Castro, Jacqueline Kennedy, Frank
Lloyd Wright, General Pershing, George Bernard Shaw, Georgia O'Keeffe,
Grey Owl, Helen Keller, Humphrey Bogart, Indira Gandhi, John F. Kennedy,
Laurence Olivier, Marian Anderson, Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, Muhammad Ali,
Pablo Casals, Pandit Nehru, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Paul Robeson, Joan Baez,
Peter Lorre, Picasso, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Pope Pius XII, Pope John
Paul II, Princess Elizabeth, Princess Grace, Prince Rainier of Monaco,
Robert Frost, Ruth Draper, Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, the rock band
Rush and, arguably his most famous portrait subject, Winston Churchill.
The story is often told of how Karsh created his famous portrait of
Churchill during the early years of World War II. Churchill, the British
prime minister, had just addressed the Canadian Parliament and Karsh was
there to record one of the century's great leaders. "He was in no mood for
portraiture and two minutes were all that he would allow me as he passed
from the House of Commons chamber to an anteroom," Karsh wrote in Faces of
Our Time. "Two niggardly minutes in which I must try to put on film a man
who had already written or inspired a library of books, baffled all his
biographers, filled the world with his fame, and me, on this occasion,
with dread."
Churchill marched into the room scowling, "regarding my camera as he might
regard the German enemy." His expression suited Karsh perfectly, but the
cigar stuck between his teeth seemed incompatible with such a solemn and
formal occasion. "Instinctively, I removed the cigar. At this the
Churchillian scowl deepened, the head was thrust forward belligerently,
and the hand placed on the hip in an attitude of anger."
The image captured Churchill and the Britain of the time perfectly —
defiant and unconquerable. Churchill later said to him, "You can even make
a roaring lion stand still to be photographed." As such, Karsh titled the
photograph, The Roaring Lion.
However, Karsh's favourite photograph was the one taken immediately after
this one where Churchill's mood had lightened considerably and is shown
much in the same pose, but smiling.
Karsh has influenced many other photographers in different styles to
become more independent and further motivate other artists
