Yousuf Karsh
Past display archive
15 January - 6 July 2008
Room 33
Free
This display marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Yousuf Karsh, one of the most important portrait photographers of the twentieth century. Fascinated by 'greatness', Karsh photographed many eminent public figures, from world leaders to Hollywood stars, during a career that spanned seven decades. His glamorous professional life was in marked contrast to his early years as a refugee from civil unrest in his native Armenia. Sent to live with an uncle in Canada, Karsh became enamoured of his adopted country, and his uncle's profession as a photographer.
A career defining opportunity came in 1941 when Karsh photographed Winston Churchill. It became one of the most famous portrait photographs of the century, and established Karsh as the photographer of society's top-rank. Celebrities and statesmen alike asked to be 'Karshed', a term coined by the World War II hero, Field Marshal Montgomery. Karsh used pose and artificial lighting to imbue his sitters with a sense of timeless dignity, and to enhance their charismatic qualities. He also hoped that his portraits might reveal; 'the trace of the fierce competition characteristic of human affairs in our era; sometimes the gleam of arrogance'.
Winston Churchill
by Yousuf Karsh
1941
NPG P490(16)
Dame Elizabeth Taylor
by Yousuf Karsh
1946
NPG P254
Graham Greene
by Yousuf Karsh
1964
NPG P490(37)
Queen Elizabeth II
by Yousuf Karsh
1951
NPG P490(25)
George Bernard Shaw
by Yousuf Karsh
1943
NPG P490(70)
Noël Coward
by Yousuf Karsh
1943
NPG P245
Related portraits
- Winston Churchill (NPG P490(16))
- Noël Coward (NPG P245)
- George Bernard Shaw (NPG P490(70))
- William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook (NPG P490(9))
- Clement Attlee (NPG P241)
- Dame Elizabeth Taylor (NPG P254)
- Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein (NPG P249)
- Somerset Maugham (NPG P490(49))
- Ralph Vaughan Williams (NPG P490(81))
- Queen Elizabeth II (NPG P490(25))
- Laurence Olivier (NPG P253)
- Augustus John (NPG P490(43))
- Indira Gandhi (NPG P490(34))
- Alfred Hitchcock (NPG P490(40))
- Harold Wilson (NPG P258)
- Graham Greene (NPG P490(37))
Related sitters
- Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee
- William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
- Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
- Sir Noël Coward
- Queen Elizabeth II
- Indira Gandhi
- Graham Greene
- Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock
- Augustus Edwin John
- William ('W.') Somerset Maugham
- Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein
- Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier
- George Bernard Shaw
- Dame Elizabeth Taylor
- Ralph Vaughan Williams
- (James) Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx