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Yousuf KarshPortrait of Nikita Khrushchev in Profile, Mid Century Black & White Photograph c. 1963
c. 1963
About the Item
Exquisite black and white photograph of Nikita Khrushchev, a portrait in profile of the former Premier of the Soviet Union, by Yousuf Karsh from his 1963 sitting (Armenian, 1908-2002). This piece is unsigned, but was acquired from Famous Faces Rare and Vintage Photos in 2006. c.1983 printing. New acid-free under and over-mat. Unframed. Image size: 9.25"H x 6.25"W.
Yousuf Karsh (Armenian, 1908-2002) was born of Armenian parents in Mardin, Turkey, on Dec. 23, 1908. In 1924 he immigrated to Canada, where his uncle, a studio portrait photographer, taught him the basis of his profession. After a three-year apprenticeship to John H. Garo of Boston, a well-known portrait photographer of the era and a fellow Armenian, Karsh settled in Ottawa and opened his own portrait studio in 1932.
He learned the dramatic use of artificial light that became the hallmark of his mature portrait style by studying theatrical lighting at the Ottawa Little Theater, of which he was a member.
In Garo's studio he had worked with natural light. At the theater he met the son of Lord Bessborough, the governor general of Canada, who persuaded his father to sit for Karsh, initiating a long and close relationship between the photographer and successive Canadian political figures. The next governor general, Lord Tweedsmuir, introduced him to Prime Minister Mackenzie King, who brought him in to photograph Winston Churchill during the latter's wartime visit to Canada in December 1941.
The Churchill portrait was a turning point in Karsh's career. He was given only two minutes to take it, during which he is said to have angered the visiting statesman by taking away his cigar before shooting. However, the portrait that resulted, showing the British prime minister glowering at the camera with a bulldoglike tenaciousness, seemed to epitomize the determination of the British to defeat Hitler, and catapulted Karsh into international fame.
The Canadian government sent him to London to photograph the other leaders of wartime Britain. Life magazine assigned him to photograph the American war leaders. By the end of the war, when he published these portraits in his first book, "Faces of Destiny," he was known throughout the world as a sympathetic portrayer of famous and powerful people.
After the war, while continuing and expanding his work as a portraitist, he collaborated with Bishop Fulton J. Sheen and others on a series of books on various aspects of the Roman Catholic religion, and in 1966 he published In Search of Greatness: Reflections of Yousuf Karsh.
In addition to Faces of Destiny (1946) his books of portraits included Portraits of Greatness (1959), Faces of Our Time (1971) and Karsh Portraits (1976). Two other books, Photographs of Yousuf Karsh: Men Who Make Our World (1967) and Karsh: A Fifty-Year Retrospective (1983), accompanied exhibitions of his work.
He had one-man shows in Ottawa (1959), Montreal (1967), New York (1983) and elsewhere. The 1967 exhibition, at the Canadian Pavilion of Expo '67, toured Canada, the United States and Europe.
Karsh's photographs also were featured in group exhibitions, among them "Photography in the 20th Century," Ottawa, 1967; "Fotografische Künstlerbildnesse," Cologne, 1973, and "Life: The First Decade 1936-45," New York, 1979.
His work is included in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; the government of Alberta; the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, in Rochester; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo; the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa; the National Portrait Gallery in London, and the Saint Louis Art Museum.
Karsh received many official honors for achievements as a photographer. Those included the Canada Council Medal, 1965; United States Presidential Citation, 1971; Gold Medal, National Association of Photographic Art, 1974, and the Achievement and Life Award, Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1980, as well as numerous honorary degrees from Canadian and American universities.
He had visiting professorships at Ohio University in Athens and at Emerson College in Boston, and was photographic adviser for Expo '70 in Osaka, Japan. He was an honorary fellow of the Royal Photographic Society of London, a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and an officer of the Order of Canada.
- Creator:Yousuf Karsh (1908-2002, Canadian)
- Creation Year:c. 1963
- Dimensions:Height: 9.25 in (23.5 cm)Width: 6.25 in (15.88 cm)Depth: 0.03 in (0.77 mm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:Upper right corner has very minor wear; three tiny nicks on top edge of photo.
- Gallery Location:Soquel, CA
- Reference Number:
Yousuf Karsh
Yousuf Karsh’s portrait of Winston Churchill used on the British ￡5 note is the most famous of his many definitive photographs of the men and women who shaped the 20th century.
Born in 1908 in the Ottoman Empire, Karsh escaped the Armenian genocide in 1922 by fleeing on foot to Syria. His father then sent him to Canada, where Karsh’s uncle worked as a photographer in Sherbrooke, Quebec. There Karsh learned photography and later took an apprenticeship with Boston painter and portrait photographer John H. Garo. Karsh opened his photography studio in 1931 and began working for the Ottawa Little Theatre. He had his journalism breakthrough in 1936 when he documented a meeting between U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King.
In 1941, his portrait of Winston Churchill with an expression of serious, steady resolve was used as the cover of LIFE magazine. The issue was credited with increasing American public support for WWII. His prolific portraiture would go on to include Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., Fidel Castro, Albert Einstein, Frank Lloyd Wright, Alfred Hitchcock and more.
He was an honorary fellow of the Royal Photographic Society of London, a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and an officer of the Order of Canada. In 2002, he passed away at the age of 93.
His work is in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, the National Portrait Gallery in London and many others. His honors included the Canada Council Medal, the United States Presidential Citation, a Gold Medal from the Canadian Association of Photographic Art and the Achievement and Life Award from Encyclopedia Britannica.
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