Yousuf Karsh, master photographer of the 20th century
On this day, January 22, in 1973, former US President Lyndon Baines Johnson died of a heart attack at the age of 64. Johnson served as the 36th President of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He was photographed by Karsh as Senator Johnson in 1960, and again in 1963, soon after Johnson was sworn in as President in the wake of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Katharine Graham (1917-2001) was an American publisher who led The Washington Post for more than two decades, overseeing the Watergate coverage that eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
Graham features in Steven Spielberg’s latest movie, “The Post”. “With help from editor Ben Bradlee, Graham races to catch up with The New York Times to expose a massive cover-up of government secrets that spans three decades and four U.S. presidents. Together, they must overcome their differences as they risk their careers – and very freedom – to help bring long-buried truths to light.”
The fiftieth issue of the John Buchan Society’s Journal, was published at the end of 2017 and features an essay by our Curator, Jerry Fielder, about the warm and fruitful relationship between John Buchan (Lord Tweedsmuir, Governor General of Canada from 1935-1940), and Yousuf Karsh.
In 1935, the paths of two great men crossed in a way that would have a lasting impact on the legacy of them both. The career of one, Yousuf Karsh, was on the ascent. In six years he would take a portrait of Winston Churchill that would launch his international fame and lead to his success as a master portrait photographer for the next six decades. The career of the other, John Buchan, would come to a sudden end five years later when he lost his life after a tragic fall.
For Karsh, this association honed his interpersonal and professional skills and expanded his clientele to those who wanted to have their portrait taken by the man who had earned the honor of “Appointment to Their Excellencies, The Governor-General and Lady Tweedsmuir.” It was through Lord Tweedsmuir that Karsh met and formed a close friendship with Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, and it was through Mackenzie King that Karsh was invited to photograph Winston Churchill in 1941. Each door opened another. However, it was Karsh’s talent more than his connections that made this possible, and Lord Tweedsmuir was one of the first to appreciate his artistic gifts.
See more about their many sittings.
A Churchill presentation ceremony was held at the British Official Residence in Moscow in December. During his visit to Russia, Boris Johnson unveiled an original Karsh photograph of Churchill. The Churchill photo was taken in 1941 and was a gift by the Karsh Estate to the British Official Residence in recognition of Mr. and Mrs. Karsh’s visit to the Soviet Union in 1963. The photograph will hang in the “Churchill Bedroom” of the British Official Residence.
The book being held by Foreign Secretary Johnson is the 2014 biography he wrote of Churchill entitled “The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History.”
Actress Peggy Cummins, best known for her performance as a trigger-happy femme fatale who robs banks with her lover in Joseph H. Lewis’s Gun Crazy (1949), died late last year at the age of 92, in London.
The subject in the negative Karsh is holding up remained a mystery for many years before we learned it was Peggy Cummins, who was photographed in 1946 for LIFE Magazine.
Read her obituary in the New York Times.
On this day, January 4, in 1974, President Richard Nixon refused to hand over tape recordings and documents that had been subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee. Nixon would resign from office in disgrace eight months later.
Karsh photographed Nixon as Senator (1952), Vice President (1957), and President-Elect (1969). He photographed Pat Nixon alone in 1954, and with her husband in 1969.
During wartime, Canadian retailers did their best to support the war effort at home by selling war bonds and supporting enlisted staff. “Of a total of 1,703 Simpsons employees who enlisted for military duty, 85 were killed in action, and only 583 returned to work at Simpsons after the war.” (Read more on Hudson’s Bay History).
A hat tip to Instagram user vanwartime who is publishing imagery related to Vancouver, BC, during the World Wars and who shared this with us, asking if there is a record of the names of the subjects. We suggest contacting our colleagues at the Library and Archives for more information.
Mr. & Mrs. C. L. Burton, President of the Robert Simpson Co. Ltd. and his wife, were also photographed in 1943.
Nagoya/Boston Museum of Fine Art, a sister museum of the MFA, Boston, is currently planning its exhibition “Happiness, In Pursuit of Happiness” for later this year and will include this wonderful portrait of William Holder, a sailmaker of some 60 years, in his loft in St. John, New Brunswick.
A controversy surrounding an exhibition in Düsseldorf arose recently and led to the cancellation of “Max Stern: From Dusseldorf to Montreal,” about the famed Jewish art dealer and the restitution of paintings that the Nazi Gestapo forced him to sell in 1937.
Canada’s Globe and Mail published a story and the National Portrait Gallery kindly shared a copy of this photograph from Stern’s 1973 sitting.
Opening on the 150th anniversary of the Canadian Confederation, this exhibition presents a selection of Inuit prints from the collection of renowned portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh and his wife Estrellita, both longtime supporters of the MFA. Included are works by key Inuit artists such as Kenojuak Ashevak, Agnes Nanogak, Jessie Oonark, Pudlo Pudlat and Lucy Qinnuayuak. The prints come largely from the printmaking cooperative at Cape Dorset, north of Hudson Bay, where printmaking was introduced around 1959. Most are stone-cuts, handprinted from blocks of soapstone in which the images are carved in relief. The works are organized thematically, with sections focusing on family and daily life; hunting; shamans and myths; and tradition and the incursion of the modern world. In addition to the prints, the exhibition features a number of small-scale sculptures, and is accompanied by a visitor guide, available for free in the gallery. “Follow the North Star: Inuit Art from the Collection of Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh” is supported by TD Bank. Additional support from the Consulate General of Canada in Boston.
The exhibition is on view from July 1 – December 31, 2017.
See Karsh’s portrait of the artist Kenojuak Ashevak.
Gary Oldman stars in the latest film about Winston Churchill, Darkest Hour, which is out now in the US and coming to the UK in the new year. Naturally, Karsh’s iconic portrait is in use in various articles, and features as the cover of the January, 2018, issue of British Mayfair Magazine. Darkest Hour follows Churchill’s early days as Prime Minister while Hitler closes in on Britain during World War II.
The story of Winston Churchill’s surprise photo shoot with Karsh is legendary. Watch a video of Karsh recreating the photograph, with Morley Safer playing Churchill.
On this day, December 22, in 1967, Yousuf Karsh was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada.
The Order of Canada is the nation’s greatest honor. There are three levels of distinction: Member, Officer, and Companion. Companion is the highest honor and it is limited to 165 living individuals. Yousuf Karsh was elevated to Companion in 1990.
On this day, December 21, in 1958, Charles de Gaulle was elected as the first president of the Fifth Republic of France. He was previously the leader of Free France (1940–1944) and the head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic (1944–1946).
“When de Gaulle visited London in June 1940, he was befriended by Colonel Georges Vanier and his wife Pauline. Georges Vanier, later a governor general of Canada, was appointed by Prime Minister Mackenzie King to be the official Canadian representative with the French National Committee in London. In 1944, Vanier accompanied de Gaulle to Ottawa, where the Free French leader addressed a large and enthusiastic crowd outside Parliament.” (Canadian Encyclopedia).
Karsh photographed Their Excellencies the Vaniers on several occasions.
In the 1930s, Karsh was in Ottawa photographing the general public, including weddings, children, pets and passport photos, in amongst local dignitaries, and productions of the Ottawa Little Theatre. When Mr. Karsh closed his studio in 1992, his negatives and work prints went to the collection of Library and Archives Canada. The LAC’s online database includes more than 10,000 scans from Karsh’s earliest years. Of course you can now cross-match those early sittings against the database on this website, making research easier, and more fun! Our search box self-populates to you can automatically see who is listed.
Read more about Karsh’s early years in Ottawa.
Library and Archives Canada – click through to “online image research.”
On this day, December 10, in 1901, on the fifth anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the first Nobel Prizes were awarded. The philanthropist left the bulk of his estate to establish the annual Prize in “physical science, in chemistry and in medical science or physiology; literary work “in an ideal direction” and the fifth prize is to be given to the person or society that renders the greatest service to the cause of international fraternity, in the suppression or reduction of standing armies, or in the establishment or furtherance of peace congresses.” (Wikipedia)
Bishop Desmond Tutu was honored with the Peace Prize in 1984.
Dr. Melvin Calvin was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1961.
Hideki Yukawa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1949.
See a list of some other Nobel Prize winners who were photographed by Karsh.
Thanks to the Gibson family for sending these images of Yousuf Karsh at work. Karsh is seen here at Reindeer Station, in Canada’s Northwest Territories, in photos taken by Reverend Ralph Gibson in the early 1950s. Both men were there for an annual reindeer round-up; more than 60 years later, the Gibson family kindly shared these scans they made from the Reverend’s original slides.
According to the Canadian Broadcasting Company, “In March 1935, the first group of reindeer were herded to the Mackenzie Delta by Saami herders and Alaska Natives after a long journey that originated on the other side of the world. The reindeer were brought to the area by the Canadian government to address a shortage of caribou. The herd, which originated in Russia, had been transported from Norway to New York City by steamship; to Seattle, Wash., by train; and north to Alaska, again by ship.” Read more.
The youngest son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana has announced his engagement. Prince Harry is fifth in line to the British throne. He is seen above at three years old with his brother, Prince William, left, and their cousins, Peter Philips and Zara Philips, children of Princess Anne. The portrait was made at Balmoral Castle in 1987.
Her Majesty was photographed several times. During the session in 1951, Prince Charles and Princess Anne joined their parents.
Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company, installed the first moving assembly line for mass production on this day, December 1, in 1913. This enabled Ford to produce a more affordable automobile.
Ford of Canada commissioned Karsh to photograph their plant in 1951 and he spent two weeks there. See more Ford of Canada photographs. See Karsh “On Assignment“.
He photographed Ford’s grandson, Henry Ford II, for LIFE Magazine in 1946, and again in 1968. Ford II was president of the Ford Motor Company from 1945 to 1960.
Founded in 1947 by photographer Tom Blau, Camera Press celebrates its 70th anniversary this year. It is one of the world’s leading independent picture agencies with a long and distinguished history, representing the work of iconic photographic legends as well as modern masters.
Made by photographic artist and curator Emma Blau, co-owner of Camera Press, to coincide with their platinum anniversary, this film is an insight into the working lives of some of the agency’s top contributors and a look at the stories behind just a few of their amazing images which are held in the Camera Press archives.
Contributors featured include: Terence Pepper, Senior Special Advisor on Photographs, National Portrait Gallery & Photographs Curator for the Fashion and Textile Museum, and acclaimed Camera Press photographers John Swannell, Clive Arrowsmith, Jillian Edelstein and Chris Floyd.
The work of photographic legend Yousuf Karsh, the first photographer to join Camera Press in 1947, also appears. As well as images by the agency’s founder Tom Blau.
“Celebrating our 70th anniversary is a real milestone: Camera Press remains not only family owned but also one of the last independent photographic agencies in existence. We are indebted to the photographers whose work Camera Press has represented over the past seven decades. Their exceptional images, both past and present, have played a significant part in shaping the history of photography.” Emma Blau
Produced & Directed by Emma Blau / Co-Director, Editing & Sound: Theo Gordon / Music: Wagga Man
On this day, November 29, in 1963, one week after President John F. Kennedy was fatally shot, President Lyndon B. Johnson established the Warren Commission. Leading the investigation into the assassination was Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren.
Warren served on the Supreme Court from 1953–1969. He was photographed twice during his tenure – in 1955, on assignment for Collier’s Magazine, and in 1963. See the details.
On this day, November 22, in 1990, Margaret Thatcher announced her resignation. The first woman prime minister in British history was elected in 1979 and was the longest-serving British PM of the 20th century.
Thatcher was photographed at the House of Commons, Westminster, in 1974 when she was Leader of the Opposition, one of many sittings arranged through Tom Blau of Camera Press. See some others.
Congratulations to Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip on the occasion of their 70th wedding anniversary, and to Camera Press for its ongoing relationship with the Royal Family, and their representation of photographer Matt Holyoak.
Yousuf Karsh joined Camera Press at its inception on a handshake with its founder, Tom Blau, and the agency would be instrumental in Karsh’s own work with the Royal Family. The Estate of Yousuf Karsh is proud to continue its representation by Camera Press to this day.
Karsh photographed Elizabeth as Princess in 1943, as well as her father, George VI, the same year. He photographed her as Princess again in 1951 and would go on to photograph her and the family across four decades. See a list of the Sittings.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s is now a reality: a café has opened at Tiffany’s flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York City. According to the New York Times, the Blue Box Café “is a bright, airy space, with the “Breakfast at Tiffany” breakfast starting at $29. The offering comes with coffee or tea, followed by a croissant and seasonal fruit and rounded out with your choice of a buttermilk waffle, smoked salmon and bagel stack, truffle eggs, or avocado toast.”
Audrey Hepburn was photographed in 1956, five years prior to playing Holly Golightly in the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s. She was photographed on her own, and with husband Mel Ferrer.
MFA Boston had a visit last week from the Honourable Bardish Chagger, Minister of Small Business & Tourism; Leader of the Canadian Government in the House of Commons. She toured “Follow the North Star: Inuit Art from the Collection of Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh” with Curator Dennis Carr, who provided insight into the works of art and talked at length about Mrs. Karsh’s great vision and generosity.
“Follow the North Star” is now in its final weeks, closing December 31, 2017.
At this year’s Paris Photo, our representative, Robert Klein, of Robert Klein Gallery, included Pablo Picasso in his booth. A lingering visitor, looking intently at the print, turned out to be Picasso’s son Claude Ruiz Picasso, himself an artist – he was Richard Avedon’s photographic assistant for a spell.
Picasso was photographed in 1954. Read the story of the Sitting and see more photos.
This year, 2017, is the centenary of the birth of master photographer Irving Penn. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art held a centennial exhibition which has now traveled to the Grand Palais, Paris, and is on view through January 29, 2018. The exhibition “looks back over his seventy-year career, with more than 235 photographic prints, all produced by the artist himself, as well as a selection of his drawings and paintings.” Read more.
Yousuf Karsh was photographed by Irving Penn and the portrait is seen here on the cover of the 1962 Karsh book In Search of Greatness.
The educational children’s television program Sesame Street debuted on this day, November 10, in 1969, and featured Jim Henson’s Muppets. Sesame Street would go on to win multiple awards: as of 2014, Sesame Street has won 167 Emmy Awards and 8 Grammy Awards, more than any other children’s show.
Jim Henson was photographed in 1990, and his portrait was published in American Legends.
On this day, November 8, in 1960, John F. Kennedy became the youngest man ever to be elected president of the United States.
Karsh photographed a whole host of Kennedys, not least of all, Senator Edward Kennedy, in 1968, and Robert Kennedy, US Attorney General at the time, in 1962.
See John F. Kennedy on the cover of LIFE Magazine in 1961 and 1963.
French philosopher, author and journalist Albert Camus was born on this day, November 7, in 1913. Three years after he sat for 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 only 42 when he received his.
See some examples of other Nobel Prize Winners who were photographed by Karsh.
1954 was a busy year for Karsh, from Viscounts to Governors to Miss Canada – see who else he photographed.
On this day, November 5, in 1940, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was re-elected President of the United States for an unprecedented third term.
In 1936, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the first American President to pay an official visit to the Dominion of Canada. 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. Read more about this important photograph.
French novelist and art theorist André Malraux was born on this day, November 3, in 1901. Malraux was appointed by President Charles de Gaulle as Minister of Information (19450-46) and subsequently as France’s first Minister of Cultural Affairs during de Gaulle’s presidency (1959-69).
André Malraux was photographed by Karsh in 1954. Charles de Gaulle was photographed in 1944.
The Estate received an inquiry from someone who owns a print of Jascha Heifetz. “I traded a violin bow for this portrait a while ago,” he told us, showing us a photo of the front and back of the print and asking if we had more information about it. The above, from the same sitting, was included in the PBS American Masters documentary Jascha Heifetz: God’s Fiddler.
Joan Crawford was photographed in December, 1948, for Collier’s Magazine. The American publication was founded in 1888 by Irish immigrant Peter Collier, and was launched as a magazine of “fiction, fact, sensation, wit, humor, and news.” Karsh photographed several people for Collier’s. See the Sittings here.
A new book about Joan Crawford has just been released by Simon and Schuster – Joan Crawford: A Biography is written by Bob Thomas, whose other books include a biography of Walt Disney.
On October 30, 1938, Orson Welles supposedly* caused a nationwide panic with a radio broadcast of his adaptation of H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, the story of a Martian invasion of earth. Wells’ story was first serialized in magazines in 1897 and then published as a hard cover in 1898.
Karsh photographed H. G. Wells at home in London, England, in 1943.
Pablo Picasso was born on this day, October 25, in 1881.
Picasso was photographed by Karsh at Villa La Galloise, in July of 1954. “The maestro’s villa was a photographer’s nightmare, with his boisterous children bicycling through vast rooms already crowded with canvases. I eagerly accepted Picasso’s alternate suggestion to meet later in Vallauris at his ceramic gallery. ‘He will never be here,’ the gallery owner commented, when my assistant and two hundred pounds of equipment arrived. ‘He says the same thing to every photographer.’ To everyone’s amazement, the ‘old lion’ not only kept his photographic appointment with me but was prompt and wore a new shirt. He could partially view himself in my large format lens and intuitively moved to complete the composition.”
A little flurry of interest in Vannevar Bush recently. Bush was an early pioneer in computer science. In 1945 he published an essay, As We May Think, which “Has been described as visionary and influential, anticipating many aspects of information society. Bush expresses his concern for the direction of scientific efforts toward destruction, rather than understanding, and explicates a desire for a sort of collective memory machine with his concept of the memex that would make knowledge more accessible, believing that it would help fix these problems. Through this machine, Bush hoped to transform an information explosion into a knowledge explosion.” (Wikipedia)
Vannevar Bush was photographed by Karsh in 1950, the year legislation to create the National Science Foundation passed through Congress and was signed into law by President Truman. The Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering; Bush was chiefly responsible for the movement that led to its creation.
Angela Lansbury was born on this day, October 16, in 1925, which makes her just 21 years old in this portrait. Among the approximately 200 people Karsh photographed in 1946 were many Hollywood celebrities, including Elizabeth Taylor, Judy Garland, Bette Davis, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff, and Gregory Peck.
Karsh would photograph Lansbury again in 1991. The multiple-award-winning British-American actor was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 2014.
On this day, October 15, in 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for his leading role in the peace process which today characterizes important parts of the international community.”
In 1985 Gorbachev was elected the new leader of the Soviet Union. He sought to reform communism, and introduced the concepts “glasnost” (openness) and “perestroika” (change). Read more on the Nobel Prize website.
By 1990, two years before closing his studio, Karsh was beginning to slow down a little, photographing only about 100 people that year. See all the Sittings listed for 1990.
From the very beginning of his career, Karsh was photographing almost daily. His work included weddings, passport photos, children and pets, dignitaries, as well as the theatre and some advertising. During this period, he was also experimenting with optics and Surrealism.
This nude study of Karsh’s first wife, Solange, consisted of four negatives carefully sandwiched together. This was long before the invention of Photoshop or digital manipulation and it required a great deal of skill, finesse, and technique in every step of the process – the exposures, the developing of the negatives, and the making of the final print.
Francois Mauriac was born on this day, October 11, in 1885. He was a French novelist, dramatist, critic, poet, and journalist, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1952.
When Karsh photographed him in 1949 he encountered a problem.
“Paris was without electric power when I photographed the eminent Catholic writer. My assistant and I had valiantly climbed five endless Parisian flights of stairs with heavy equipment, in the vain hope that electricity would soon be restored. It was late in the afternoon and we would not soon have the opportunity to meet again. So, using a bed sheet borrowed from his housekeeper as a reflector, I caught his aristocratic silhouette in the available light of an open French window.”
Mauriac would be photographed in Paris a second time, in 1965.