Yousuf Karsh

Yousuf Karsh ( born December 23, 1908 in Mardin, Turkey as Howsep Karshian; † July 13, 2002 in Boston, USA ) was a Canadian photographer of Armenian descent. He was one of the most important portrait photographers of the 20th century.

Life

Karsh was born in southeastern Turkey. At the age of 14 he was forced to flee with his family to Syria to escape persecution after the genocide of the Armenians. Two years later, his parents sent him to his uncle George Nakash, a photographer in Sherbrooke, in the province of Quebec in Canada. After briefly attending school, he assisted his uncle in his studio. Nakash saw the talent of his nephew and sent him to training to the portrait photographer John Garo in Boston, USA.

Four years later, Karsh returned to Canada. He founded his own studio in the Spark Street in Ottawa, the Canadian seat of the government. Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King became aware of him and arranged a number of portrait sessions with Canadian dignitaries. As a result, he also photographed personalities from show business, but he gained international fame with his portrait of Winston Churchill, who visited Canada in 1941.

1967 Karsh was given the average level of the highest Canadian award for civilians ( Officer of the Order of Canada), and in 1990 it was in the highest level ( Companion of the Order of Canada).

As the only photographer and the only Canadian Karsh was taken by the International Who's Who 2000, the list of the one hundred most influential people of the 20th century. Of the other elect this list he portrays more than half.

Karsh died 2002. He was buried in Notre Dame Cemetery in Ottawa.

Work

In the studio, Karsh was a master of lighting. A special feature of his work was the separate illumination of the hands of his sitters. He photographed many of the most important and celebrated personalities of his generation. Journalist George Perry wrote in the London " Sunday Times ": " When the famous start thinking about their immortality, they turn to Yousuf Karsh ".

Karsh had to capture a remarkable talent, the characteristic of a man in his photographs. He himself wrote in 1967: " In every man a secret is hidden and as a photographer it is my task to reveal this according to my abilities. This revelation, they succeed because is located in the fraction of a second in an unconscious gesture, a gleam of the eye to hide, a brief lifting of the mask that all humans wear to their very own self before the world, reveal. In this moment of opportunity the photographer must act or he loses his chance. "

Karshs works are exhibited internationally in numerous museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Art Institute in Chicago, the National Portrait Gallery in London and the National Gallery of Canada. Among the personalities who he photographed: Albert Einstein, Albert Schweitzer, Alexander Calder, Andy Warhol, Audrey Hepburn, Clark Gable, Dwight Eisenhower, Ernest Hemingway, Fidel Castro, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Frank Lloyd Wright, John Pershing, George Bernard Shaw, Georgia O'Keeffe, Helen Keller, Humphrey Bogart, Indira Gandhi, John F. Kennedy, Laurence Olivier, Muhammad Ali, Pablo Casals, Pandit Nehru, Peter Lorre, Pablo Picasso, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Queen Elizabeth II, Grace Kelly, Prince Rainier of Monaco, Nikita Khrushchev.

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Publications (selection )

• American legends. Boston, MA: Little Brown, 1992.
• Heroes of light and shadow. Berlin:. G & H Verl, 2000.
• A Biography in Images. Boston, MA: MFA Publ, 2003.