Karsh: 50 Years of Photographs by Yousuf Karsh
17 February to 8 April 1984
Exhibition Handlist
Introduction
From our vantage point in the 1980s, we can see today that Yousuf Karsh belongs to that small elite group of artists whose work has not only affected our perception of people and ideas but has also helped to influence the course of history. The publication of his famous photograph of Churchill on the cover of Life magazine in 1942 is generally accepted as having played a large part in diverting the attention of the American public to the plight of Britain and convincing them of our fighting spirit and determination to survive. Karsh has always had a special relationship with Britain, for following the international success accorded to him for the Churchill photograph, in 1943 he boarded a Norwegian freighter containing a cargo of explosives which was bound from Canada to Britain and stayed in London to photograph wartime leaders and intellectuals. Many of these photographs were published in the Illustrated London News and played their own part in raising the nation’s morale. Since then he has returned to Britain many times and on one of his last visits in 1976 photographed the present Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Margaret Thatcher.
Karsh’s ability to produce the ‘definitive’ portrait of so many of the great men and women of our times, not only Churchill but Kennedy, Khrushchev, Castro, Hemingway and others, is not achieved lightly. In addition to the long sittings he often requires, he researches his sitters thoroughly before meeting them, and his careful studio lighting, which he first learned with the Ottawa Little Theatre in the 1930s, is legendary, Courage, too, is required, for who else would have dared to pull the cigar from Churchill’s mouth or persuaded Khrushchev to dress up in a large fur coat?
It is appropriate that the National Portrait Gallery should be showing at last an exhibition of the work of one of the world’s most famous portrait photographers. It not only contains most of Karsh’s best-known photographs but has an added emphasis on the British sitters he has photographed.
The exhibition was organised by Colin Ford, Director of the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Bradford, and received its first showing there last year. All the prints were generously donated to Bradford by Yousuf Karsh. For the showing at the National Portrait Gallery, the exhibition has been augmented by a number of photographs of English sitters, and we extend our gratitude both to Karsh for the magnanimous gift to the Gallery of the extra prints and to Colin Ford for the loan to the Bradford exhibition. 1983 not only Karsh’s 75th birthday, but also the publication of his latest book, Karsh: A Fifty-Year Retrospective. On both these happy events, we offer our congratulations.
Robin Gibson
Curator, 20th Century Department
Catalogue
1. Yousuf Karsh 1976
Photographer, Ottawa
2. A girl from Texas 1927
Vintage ‘sanguine’ bromoil
3. Children at play 1928
Vintage bromoil, Sherbrooke, Ontario
4. The Fenway, Boston, Massachusetts 1928
Vintage bromoil
5. John H Garo 1930
Photographer and Karsh’s teacher
Boston, Massachusetts
6. John Buchan, Lord Tweedsmuir, Canadian Governor General;
William Lyon Mackenzie King, Canadian Prime Minister
Franklin D, Roosevelt, American President
James Roosevelt, the President’s son
1936, The Citadel, Quebec
7. Elixir 1940
Early photographic experiment, Ottawa
8. City of straws 1940
Early photographic experiment, Ottawa
9. Jean-Louis Barrault 1941
Actor and director
Paris
10. Sir Winston Churchill 1941
Statesman and Prime Minister
Ottawa
11. Sir Winston Churchill 1941
Statesman and Prime Minister
Ottawa
12. Paul Robeson 1941
Singer and actor
Ottawa
13. Sir Noel Coward 1943
Actor and playwright, London
14. Sir David Low 1943
Cartoonist, London
15. Louis Mountbatten, Earl of Mountbatten of Burma 1943
Admiral of the Fleet
London
16. George Bernard Shaw 1943
Author and playwright
London
17. H. G. Wells 1943
Writer
London
18. Clement Attlee
1st Earl Attlee 1944
Labour politician and Prime Minister
London
19. Sir Anthony Eden,
Earl of Avon 1945
Statesman and Prime Minister
San Francisco
20. Humphery Bogart 1946
Film actor
Holmby Hills, California
21. Bette Davis 1946
Film actress
Laguna Beach, California
22. General Dwight D. Eisenhower 1946
Soldier, statesman and President
Washington DC
23. Boris Karloff 1846
Film actor
Hollywood
24. Peter Lorre 1946
Film actor
Hollywood
25. Elizabeth Taylor 1946
Film actress
Hollywood
26. Kurt Weill 1946
Composer
Rockland County, New York State
27. Joan Crawford 1948
Film actress
Beverly Hills, Hollywood
28. Albert Einstein 1948
Physicist
Princeton, New Jersey
29. Helen Keller with her companion, Polly Thompson 1948
Blind and deaf writer
New York
30. Beatrice Lillie, Lady Peel 1948
Stage actress and comedienne
31. François Mauriac 1949
Writer
Paris
32. Henry Moore 1949
Sculptor
Much Hadham, Hertfordshire
33. J. Arthur Rank 1949
Film Producer
London
34. J. B Priestly 1949
Writer
London
35. Jan Sibelius 1949
Composer
Finland
36. Ralph Vaughan Williams 1949
Composer
Surrey
37. William Somerset Maugham 1950
Novelist and playwright
New York
38. Richard Rogers, composer
Oscar Hammerstein, Lyricist 1950
New York
39. Steelworkers 1950
Atlas Steel Plant, Welland, Ontario
40. Harold Wilson, Lord Wilson of Rievaulx 1950
Labour politician and Prime Minister
41. Ford spray painters 1951
Windsor, Ontario
42. William Holder 1953
Sailmaker
St John, New Brunswick
43. Prairie wheat farmer 1953
Regina, Saskatchewan
44. Indian Man 1953
Edmonton, Alberta
45. Inuit woman in hospital 1953
Edmonton, Alberta
46. Coalminer 1953
Nova Scotia
47. Benjamin Britten, Lord Britten of Aldeburgh 1954
Composer
Aldeburgh, Suffolk
48. Pablo Casals 1954
Cellist
Prades, France
49. Walt Disney 1954
Film-maker and entrepreneur
Burbank, California
50. Sir Alexander Fleming 1954
Discoverer of penicillin
St Mary’s Hospital, London
51. Bernard Law Montgomery, Field-Marshal Lord Montgomery of Alamein 1954
Military commander
Fontainebleau, France
52. Laurence Olivier, Lord Olivier of Brighton 1954
Actor
London
53. Pablo Picasso 1954
Artist
Vallauris, France
54. Albert Schweitzer 1954
Physician, musician and theologian
Gunsbach, Alsace
55. Gilbert Murray 1955
Classical scholar
Oxford
56. Sir Jacob Epstein
Sculptor
London
57. Samuel Barber 1956
Composer
Mount Kisco, New York
58. Sir Winston Churchill 1956
Statesman and Prime Minister
London
59. Aaron Copland 1956
Composer
Ossining, New York
60. Cecil B. de Mille 1956
Film director
Los Angeles
61. Anita Ekberg 1956
Film actress
Hollywood
62. Jawaharlal Pandit Nehru 1956
Statesman, Indian nationalist and Prime Minister
63. Georgia O’Keeffe 1956
Painter
Albuquerque, New Mexico
64. Robert Oppenheimer 1956
Physicist
Princeton, New Jersey
65. Ernest Hemingway 1957
Writer
Havana, Cuba
66. Lester B. Pearson 1957
Statesman and Canadian Prime Minister
Ottawa
67. Andrés Segovia 1957
Guitarist
New York
68. Brigitte Bardot 1958
Film actress
Paris
69. Norman McLaren
Film-Maker
Ottawa
70. Anna Magnani 1958
Actress
Rome
71. Sir Edmund Hillary 1960
Mountaineer
Chicago
72. John F. Kennedy 1960
Statesman and President
Washington DC
73. Nikita Khrushchev 1963
Statesman and Soviet Premier
Near Moscow
74. Zulu mother and child 1963
Natal National Park, South Africa
75. Leslie Caron 1963
Actress
London
76. Graham Greene 1964
Writer
London
77. Evelyn Waugh 1964
Writer
Taunton, Somerset
78. Marc Chagall 1965
Artist
Paris
79. Max Ernst 1965
Painter and sculptor
Tours, France
80. Alberto Giacometti 1965
Sculptor
Paris
81. Joan Miró 1965
Artist
Paris
82. Man Ray 1965
Photographer and painter
Paris
83. Jean-Paul Riopelle 1965
Artist
Paris
84. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh 1966
Buckingham Palace
85. Alexander Calder 1966
Sculptor
Tours, France
86. Ravi Shankar 1968
Sitar player
New York
87. Joan Baez 1970
Folk singer
San Francisco
88. Yasunari Kawabata 1970
Writer
Kamakura, Japan
89. Edward Steichen 1970
Photographer
West Redding, Connecticut
90. Fidel Castro 1971
Revolutionary leader and statesman
Havana, Cuba
91. Melina Mercouri 1971
Actress and politician
New York
92. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor 1971
New York
93. Jacques Cousteau 1972
Oceanographer
Los Angeles
94. Karen Magnussen 1973
Skater
Ottawa
95. Mstislav Rostropovitch 1974
Cellist
Arles, France
96. His Royal Highness Charles, Prince of Wales 1975
Ottawa
97. Rt Hon Margaret Thatcher 1976
Conservative politician and Prime Minister
London
98. Jessie Oonark 1979
Eskimo printmaker
Baker Lake, Northwest Territories
99. Dr R. Buckminster Fuller 1980
Mathematician
New York
100. Sophia Loren 1981
Film actress
Paris
Chronology
1908
Born in Mardin, Armenia-in-Turkey to Bahai Nakash and Amsih Karsh, an import-export merchant, on 23 December.
1924
Emigrated to Canada and lived with his uncle, George Nakash, who had a photographic studio in Sherbrooke, Quebec.
1926-8
After attending college in Sherbrooke, worked as an assistant in his uncle’s photography studio.
1928-31
Studied photography and worked as an apprentice to the Armenian-born portrait photographer John H. Garo in Boston.
1932
Moved to Ottowa to work in the John Powis studio in Sparks Street. Soon after, Powis retired and Karsh took over the lease to establish the Karsh studio.
1933
Met Solange Gauthier (his future wife) while photographing productions of the Little Theatre. Appointed official photographer for the first Dominion Drama Festival held in Ottawa that year.
1934
Publication of many Drama Festival photographs in the prestigious periodical Saturday Night helped establish his Canadian reputation.
1935
Commissioned to do official Canadian Government portraiture.
1939
Married Solange Gauthier (who died in 1961).
1941
Through the influence of the Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, secured an opportunity to photograph Winston Churchill in the Speaker’s Chamber of the Canadian House of Commons.
1943
With partial funding from Saturday Night magazine Karsh travelled to England to photograph forty-two major personalities between September and November including a major series, ‘Men who shape our destinies,’ in the Illustrated London News.
1944
Commissioned by Life magazine to photograph top American political and military leaders in Washington.
1945
Travelled to San Francisco for Life magazine to photograph thirty international representatives at the conference setting up the United Nations.
1946
In January sent to Hollywood by Life magazine to photograph leading film stars including Peter Lorre, Humphrey Bogart and Elizabeth Taylor.
1949
Travelled to Europe and photographed the Pope in Rome, Sibelius in Finland and Mauriac in France.
1951-3
Took a series of industrial photographs for Atlas Steel Works and Ford of Canada.
1954
On a European expedition photographed Marshal Tito in Yugoslavia, Albert Schweitzer and French writers and intellectuals in Paris.
1960
After publication of Portraits of Greatness, the National Gallery of Canada organised an exhibition to tour Canada, The United States and South Africa.
1962
Married Estrellita Nachbar, a writer from Chicago specialising in medical subjects.
1967-9
Appointed Visiting Professor of Ohio University.
1970
Photographic advisor to Expo 70 in Osaka, Japan.
1982
Fifty-year retrospective exhibitions to mark seventy-fifth birthday at the new National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Bradford and the International Center of Photography, New York.