Celebrating the release of Nelson Mandela after 27 years in prison on February 11, 1990, we added this portrait of the great man, laughing at a joke made by Karsh, to our online archive. Here’s the joke.

See more portraits of Mandela. Search all 15,000+ Sittings here.

Harold Macmillan was born on this day, February 10, in 1894. After serving in the First World War, Macmillan entered the United Kingdom parliament in 1924. He served in Winston Churchill’s war cabinet and opposed appeasement of Nazi Germany. He was Prime Minister of the UK from 1957 to 1963.

Dubbed “Supermac”, he was known for his pragmatism, wit and unflappability.

The Right Honorable Harold Macmillan was Foreign Secretary when photographed by Karsh in 1955, an extremely prolific year for the photographer. See others who were photographed.

On February 6, in 1952, Britain’s King George VI died and his eldest daughter Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth II. Both were photographed by Karsh in 1943, when Elizabeth was just 18, and Her Royal Highness would go on to sit for Mr. Karsh on four more occasions over the next 44 years: 1951, 1966, 1984, and 1987. See some more photographs here.

It’s 1957. You are at a beautiful beach house overlooking the Pacific. You’re there with Cary Grant, Clare Boothe Luce and Aldous Huxley and they are on an acid trip. Together. That is the bold premise of the new musical, FLYING OVER SUNSET, written and directed by James Lapine.

FLYING OVER SUNSET opens March 12, 2020, at New York’s Lincoln Center. We are thrilled that this photograph of Ms. Boothe Luce will accompany an article about the production in Lincoln Center Theater Review.

Philip Glass was born on this day, January 31, in 1937. He has written numerous operas and musical theatre works, twelve symphonies, eleven concertos, eight string quartets and various other chamber music, and film scores. Three of his film scores have been nominated for Academy Awards.

Glass was photographed by Karsh in 1990 for the book project American Legends. Karsh notes of his subject: “In his cluttered room he produces avant-garde compositions – beyond the parameters of conventional music – challenging us to open our minds and relinquish the comfort of familiar melodies.”

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born on this day, January 30, in 1882. FDR was the first American President to pay an official visit to the Dominion of Canada, in 1936. There to greet him and his son James Roosevelt were: Lord Tweedsmuir, Governor General of Canada; Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King; and, a great deal of International press.

This photograph was made on the terrace of the Citadel at Quebec overlooking the St. Lawrence and the Beaufort Shore where Wolfe unsuccessfully assaulted the entrenched forces of Montcalm. Earlier in the afternoon, there had been a roundup of notables for the news photographers, when fifty or more cameramen engaged in another formidable assault by flashlight bulbs. I was unable to take part in the melee with my equipment, and, after the gathering broke up, bemoaned my bad luck to the Comptroller of the Household, an old friend. He significantly suggested that I stick around.

Later in the afternoon President Roosevelt appeared with his son James, Lord Tweedsmuir and the Canadian Prime Minister. They had come out for a breath of air and were quite willing to be photographed again. They proceeded rather self-consciously, standing stiffly erect, side-by-side, like soldiers at attention. I pretended to click the shutter and said, “Thank you, very much.” The ordeal over, Tweedsmuir began to tell one of his Scottish stories and everyone relaxed. This time I did click the shutter.

We are pleased to support the important work of Dublin Simon Community, Ireland, as they raise funds to help tackle homelessness and its related issues. We licensed this portrait of Nelson Mandela to illustrate a poem for a book, sales of which will benefit the organization.

See other images from this Sitting.

American novelist, poet, and short-story writer, John Updike died on this day, January 27, in 2009.

One of only three writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once, Updike published more than twenty novels, more than a dozen short-story collections, as well as poetry, art and literary criticism and children’s books during his career. This portrait will appear on the cover of a new book about Updike from University of Kansas Press later this year.

See some other Pulitzer Prize winners who were photographed by Karsh: Pearl Buck, Gian Carlo Menotti, Samuel Barber, Robert Frost, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Carl Sandburg.

The world lost an icon on this day, January 23, in 1978 when Paul Robeson, American bass baritone, stage and film actor, and political activist, died.

It came as a poignant irony to me that I photographed Paul Robeson the same year that I photographed Winston Churchill.* Churchill had a profound belief in his homeland and its values, while Robeson left the United States for Russia in a personal crisis of conscience… I invited this all-American athlete and gifted performer to be photographed after hearing his concert in Ottawa. His magnificent voice turned the theater into a cathedral. The next day, during our photographic session, he regaled me with spirituals of such surpassing beauty that I wanted to share them with my wife. Robeson was introduced to her over the telephone, and Solange had a private concert all her own.

*Robeson was photographed October 30, 1941. Churchill was photographed December 30, 1941.

Click here to see another photograph from this Sitting.

Collecting New York’s Stories: Stuyvesant to Sid Vicious opens tomorrow, January 22, 2020, at The Museum of the City of New York, and features highlights drawn from the hundreds of additions to the Museum’s permanent collection over the past three years, running the gamut from the colonial era to the recent past. Included in the show is Karsh’s photograph of the Marx Brothers, who Karsh photographed in 1948 for Collier’s magazine.

The print was donated to The Museum of the City of New York after its owner contacted us here at the Estate asking for assistance donating it somewhere it could be seen by the public, and we connected them with the MCNY curator.

Read more about the exhibition.

See who else was photographed for Collier’s.

Mrs. Estrellita Karsh celebrates her 90th birthday this weekend, on January 19. Estrellita Nachbar met Yousuf Karsh in 1961, and aside from her influence on his extraordinary life, she has not ceased working to maintain his legacy since his passing in 2002. You can read about Estrellita’s activities here – scroll down for information about the Karsh Center, Lectures, and more.

It was a congenial medical office – one that always made me think of my original desire to be a physician – which provided the setting for Estrellita Nachbar, the gifted medical writer and historian who was to become my wife. I was in Chicago photographing her employer and mentor, one of America’s most distinguished physicians, Dr. Walter C. Alvarez. He was then bringing to millions of readers, through his syndicated column, the reassuring clinical wisdom and compassion that had made him a beloved and world-famous diagnostician at the Mayo Clinic. Estrellita had been Dr. Alvarez’s editor for some years, using her extensive literary and medical background to make difficult scientific concepts exciting and readable to the layman, and collaborating with the doctor on his current best sellers. As Newsweek whimsically put it when reporting our marriage in 1962, “Something else clicked beside the shutter.” With our marriage, at which Dr. Alvarez gave away the bride, we blended our worlds, each adding a new dimension to the other. With her editorial ability Estrellita helped me to formulate my thoughts. She also brought her organizational skills to planning trips and schedules so that work was always complemented by new discoveries. On all our travels over the years – whether to Zululand, to Japan, to Russia, to Finland, to Scandinavia, to Egypt – we have pursued our joint interests in archaeology, in art, in medicine. She has continued to write articles on medical history. I have often sat in the audience at her lectures, when her carefully concealed scholarship transforms research in old tomes into engaging and modern social history.

Read more in our Brief Biography.

See the portrait of Dr. Alvarez.

See Yousuf and Estrellita Karsh’s wedding at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Martin Luther King was born on January 15, 1929. Dr. King was photographed by Karsh in August, 1962, not long after King was bailed from jail by Billy Graham.

King was awarded at least fifty honorary degrees from colleges and universities, and in 1964 he became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to him for leading nonviolent resistance to racial prejudice in the U.S. Read more.

See another photograph from the Sitting.

Andrew Wright is the 2019 Karsh Award winner and his exhibition opens on January 23, 2019, at the Karsh-Masson Gallery, in Ottawa’s City Hall. The Karsh Award is presented every four years to a local (Ottawa, Canada-based) mid-career or established artist for their outstanding body of work and their significant contribution to the artistic discipline in a photo/lens-based medium.

Wright’s winning project “Filmtrack 4 A Sound: Suite Kurelek de Fiala” is inspired by a pristine, unopened box set of records from the 1980s that Wright found in 2009. A perfectly preserved artifact of a more idealistic time, Canadian Anthology (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 1987) is carefully unboxed, played and recorded a single time, and then resealed. Within the anthology is George Fiala’s (1922-2017) Kurelek Suite (1982), an orchestral piece in which each of the five movements is composed in response to a particular painting by William Kurelek (1927-1977). Taking Fiala’s homage one step further, Wright makes a filmic chronicle of the unboxing event, which is then screened as three contiguous fields on the gallery walls. The result is a visual journey across vast arctic landscapes of snow and ice – or so it would appear.

Read more about the Karsh Award. See more of Andrew’s work.

Russell William Bannock was a Canadian fighter ace during the Second World War. This portrait of Bannock was in the private collection of Mr. Bannock’s family and will accompany his obituary in the Canadian Globe and Mail. Karsh photographed many Canadians who were serving in the military at the time.

Our colleagues at the Globe shared the story of this sitting:

This picture was taken in 1943 by Yousuf Karsh. Before Bannock went overseas in 1943, his mother asked him for a picture of himself in uniform. He said that he was walking down Sparks Street in Ottawa and saw a sign that said “Yousuf Karsh, Photographer.” He walked in expecting the photograph to take 20 minutes. After three hours he walked out. Karsh interviewed him, wanted to know his life history to that point, set different lighting and finally took the photo as attached.

Richard Milhous Nixon was born on this day, January 9, in 1913. Nixon served the United States as vice president to Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1961, and as the 37th president from 1969 until 1974.

Karsh photographed a total of twelve US Presidents, from Hoover to Clinton.

Also on January 7, in 1955, Marian Anderson became the first African American to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

In the 1930s Anderson was denied the right to sing in her own country’s capital because she wasn’t white. At the urging of Eleanor Roosevelt, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes permitted her to perform at the Lincoln Memorial, where, on April 9, 1939, she sang before a crowd of more than 75,000 people and a radio audience in the millions. Read more.

In October, 1998, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives decided with a bipartisan vote of 258–176 (31 Democrats joined Republicans) to commence impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton. Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives on December 19, 1998, on grounds of perjury to a grand jury and obstruction of justice. On this day, January 7, in 1999, the Senate trial for Clinton’s impeachment began – he would go on to be ruled “not guilty” on both charges.

Karsh had closed his studio in Ottawa in 1992, aged 84, but in 1993 he traveled to the White House to photograph the new president and new First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, in 1993. And Clinton installed Karsh’s “Roaring Lion” Churchill portrait when he moved into his new residence. See the portraits of Hillary Clinton, and the two together.

This photograph was recently requested for a scholarly book and is new to this website. Alfred Blalock was an American surgeon most noted for his work on the medical condition of shock as well as Tetralogy of Fallot, commonly known as Blue baby syndrome.

Along with his research and laboratory assistant Vivien Thomas, and pediatric cardiologist Helen Taussig (photographed by Karsh in 1975), they developed the Blalock-Thomas-Taussig Shunt, a surgical procedure to relieve the cyanosis from Blue baby syndrome. This operation ushered in the modern era of cardiac surgery.

Blalock was Surgeon-in-Chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital when he was photographed by Karsh. See more images from the Sitting.

American writer and professor of biochemistry Isaac Asimov was born on this day, January 2, in 1920. He was known for his works of science fiction and popular science. Asimov is one of six sitters listed in the records as being photographed for the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather’s “Staying Power” Series, for Panhandle Eastern Corp., an American natural gas pipeline company. See the other sitters.

Today, December 30, is the anniversary of Churchill’s famous “some chicken, some neck!” speech made to the Canadian House of Parliament in 1941, immediately after which Karsh would make his outstanding portrait of the great British Prime Minister.

My portrait of Winston Churchill changed my life. I knew after I had taken it that it was an important picture, but I could hardly have dreamed that it would become one of the most widely reproduced images in the history of photography. In 1941, Churchill visited first Washington and then Ottawa. The Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, invited me to be present. After the electrifying speech, I waited in the Speaker’s Chamber where, the evening before, I had set up my lights and camera. The Prime Minister, arm-in-arm with Churchill and followed by his entourage, started to lead him into the room. I switched on my floodlights; a surprised Churchill growled, ‘What’s this, what’s this?’ No one had the courage to explain. I timorously stepped forward and said, ‘Sir, I hope I will be fortunate enough to make a portrait worthy of this historic occasion.’ He glanced at me and demanded, ‘Why was I not told?’ When his entourage began to laugh, this hardly helped matters for me. Churchill lit a fresh cigar, puffed at it with a mischievous air, and then magnanimously relented. ‘You may take one.’ Churchill’s cigar was ever present. I held out an ashtray, but he would not dispose of it. I went back to my camera and made sure that everything was all right technically. I waited; he continued to chomp vigorously at his cigar. I waited. Then I stepped toward him and, without premeditation, but ever so respectfully, I said, ‘Forgive me, sir,’ and plucked the cigar out of his mouth. By the time I got back to my camera, he looked so belligerent he could have devoured me. It was at that instant that I took the photograph.

In 1955, Yousuf Karsh was commissioned to produce photographs for an advertising campaign for Bradings, a Canadian brewery. The images included some still lifes and a few scenes such as this, whose caption is “Bruce Heggtveit and Miss Dunning for Bradings Series Christmas Scene.” Thanks as always to the Library and Archives, Canada, for their ongoing digitization of the Karsh Fonds.

Happy holidays and a healthy new year to all our followers.

Yousuf Karsh was born on this day, December 23, in 1908. By the time of his passing in 2002 he had photographed more than 15,000 subjects. You can browse and search them all here. Find out about Karsh’s cameras and lighting here. Read his biography here.

Soviet politician Leonid Brezhnev was born on December 19, in 1906. Brezhnev was the leader of the Soviet Union for 18 years, serving as General Secretary of the Central Committee and of the Communist Party. He apparently told Karsh he would sit for a portrait if Karsh made him look as good as Audrey Hepburn…

Karsh photographed several people on his visit to the USSR in 1963. See a list.

In 2019, 25 recordings were added to the United States Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry. One of them is Ruth Draper: “Complete recorded monologues” (1954-1956). Joining Ms. Draper on the list of recordings are Karsh Sitters Pablo Casals for his “Bach Six Cello Suites” (album c. 1939); Benjamin Britten for “War Requiem” (album, 1963); and Robert F. Kennedy‘s Speech on the Death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (April 4, 1968).

From the Library of Congress: Ruth Draper (1884-1956) was an actress who specialized in solo performance featuring numerous characters and monologues of her own creation. Some were humorous, such as her many sketches of society women like “The Italian Lesson,” a 28-minute tour de force of conversation, interruptions and distractions, and very little Italian. Others were more serious, like “A Scottish Immigrant at Ellis Island” and “In a Railway Station on the Western Plains.” She presented them successfully on stages in Europe and America from the 1910s on… She resisted recording offers until late in her life, when she recorded a series of her monologues in 1954. A lone album with three monologues was released by RCA Victor in 1956, though her work was further anthologized on five albums by the Spoken Arts label. Recent digital versions have included previously unreleased monologues.

On December 11, 1936, after ruling for less than one year, Edward VIII became the first English monarch to voluntarily abdicate the throne – he wished to marry a divorcée, Wallis Simpson.

Karsh photographed the married couple in 1971, one year before Edward, Duke of Windsor, died. In late 1971, the Duke, who was a smoker from an early age, was diagnosed with throat cancer. (In 1964 he was operated on by another Karsh Sitter, Michael E. DeBakey.  Read more (Wikipedia)

Animator, voice actor and film producer Walt Disney was born on December 5, in 1901. Disney was photographed by Karsh in May, 1954, two months before construction began on the Disneyland theme park, which opened in July, 1955.

New to the website: John Walker III, an American art curator, and the second director of the National Gallery of Art, from 1956 to 1969. Walker, pictured here on the steps of the National Gallery, was one of several museum directors who were photographed for a project created by Ivan Dmitri called “Photography in the Fine Arts.” You can see their Sitting info here.

Ivan Dmitri, a photographer himself, helped to gain acceptance for photography as an art medium, and established one of the first photography exhibits at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

On this day in December, 1967, the first human heart transplant was performed in South Africa by Dr. Christiaan Barnard on a patient named Louis Washkansky. Barnard was assisted by his brother, Marius Barnard, as well as a team of thirty others. The operation lasted approximately five hours. Dr. Barnard was photographed by Karsh in 1969 at the Montreal Heart Institute in Canada.

American composer and conductor Aaron Copland died on this day, December 2, in 1990. Copland was photographed by Karsh in 1956, a particularly interesting and prolific year for the photographer. Search our Sittings to see more subjects from actors and producers to company presidents.

The Crown, Netflix’s hit series dramatizing the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, is back for its third season, which premiered in November. Gone after the first two seasons is the bulk of the cast, however,  John Lithgow does return to start season three as Winston Churchill. Dozens of actors have played Churchill in films, plays, TV and radio, with Academy Award for Best Actor going to Gary Oldman for his portrayal in the film “The Darkest Hour” in 2017.

See more about the subjects of The Crown who were photographed by Karsh.

The holiday season is almost upon us. This portrait of the British Royal family in 1987 was used as the Royal Household’s Christmas card – the portrait shows the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh with their grandchildren, William, Harry, Peter Phillips, and Zara Phillips, at Balmoral Castle in 1987. insider.com has published a selection of “some of the best” images that were used as Christmas cards by the Family through the years, click through to see a photo of Mr. Karsh posing with a print of this portrait.

Pope John XXIII, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, was born on this day, November 25, in 1881. He was photographed by Karsh in 1959, and as 262nd Pope he reigned from 1958-1963.

Karsh photographed four Popes in total, and some people with the surname Pope. See them here.

Robert F. Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on November 20, 1925. Kennedy was Attorney General of the United States when he was photographed by Karsh in 1962, a position he held from 1961 to 1964.

In 1968, then-42 year-old presidential candidate, Kennedy was shot dead in Los Angeles. He had just won the California presidential primaries in the 1968 election.

See another portrait of RFK from this Sitting.

Indira Gandhi was born on November 19, in 1917. She was the first and, to date, the only female Prime Minister of India.

Gandhi was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India. Gandhi served as Prime Minister from January 1966 to March 1977 and again from January 1980 until her assassination in October 1984, making her the second longest-serving Indian Prime Minister, after her father.

Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, inventor, teacher, and environmental activist Margaret Atwood turned 80 this week. Since 1961, she has published 17 books of poetry, 16 novels, 10 books of non-fiction, eight collections of short fiction, eight children’s books, and one graphic novel, as well as a number of small press editions in poetry and fiction.

Atwood was photographed by Karsh in 1977 for his book Karsh Canadians (1978, University of Toronto Press) but she was also photographed in 1985 as “One of group of writers photographed together for Apple Canada, Inc. Including Charles Templeton, Ben Wicks, Harold Towne, Veronica Tennant, Margaret Atwood.”

Jawaharlal Nehru was born on this day, November 14, in 1889. Nehru was an Indian independence activist, and subsequently, the first Prime Minister of India and a central figure in Indian politics before and after independence. He served India as Prime Minister from its establishment as an independent nation in 1947 until his death in 1964. Nehru was photographed twice by Karsh, in 1949 and in 1956.

In an interview with the BBC earlier this month, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev warned that current tension between Russia and the West is putting the world in “colossal danger” due to the threat from nuclear weapons.

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was photographed as “President, USSR (Secretary General of the Soviet Communist Party and Chairman of the Supreme Soviet)”. The records show that he was photographed at Government House, Ottawa, on May 30, 1990, during an historic visit to Canada where he met with then-prime minister Brian Mulroney.

November 11 marks the end of World War I, in 1919, and is observed as a day of remembrance in several countries, including Veterans’ Day in the US, and Remembrance Day in the UK and Canada.

General Andrew George Latta McNaughton, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., M.Sc., D.C.L., LL.D. was a Canadian soldier, inventor, scholar, and scientist. Twice wounded in World War I, he became: President, National Research Council in 1933; Commander, First Canadian Army in 1939; and, Minister of National Defense in 1944.

Karsh wrote:

The founder of Canada’s modern army, and the man upon whose shoulders rested the principal responsibility for the defense of Britain in the months that followed Dunkirk, came to my studio in Ottawa, during a short leave following a long and tedious tour of duty in Britain. He was so tense that it was difficult to find a good angle from which to take him. Thinking that it might prove relaxing, I suggested that he try walking up and down. Ever since, I’ve been accused of exhausting the General by putting him through a campaign route march. However, I was able to catch this picture during one of his halts, and, in certain ways, I consider it one of the most successful I have ever made.

Pablo Picasso and Alberto Giacometti will be the subjects of a new museum opening in Beijing in 2020. Paris’s National Picasso Museum and the Giacometti Foundation are teaming up to manage the new institution for at least the first five years, from June 2020 through June 2025. (After that, they may extend the partnership or hand the museum over to Chinese management.) The institution will present up to four exhibitions each year. These two are just an example of the many artists photographed by Karsh. Explore our Selected Archive for more or search all the sittings for a particular person.

French philosopher, author and journalist Albert Camus was born on this day, November 7, in 1913. Three years after he was photographed by Karsh, Camus would receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was the second-youngest recipient of this Prize, at the age of 44 – Rudyard Kipling was 42 when he received his.