Yousuf Karsh



Yousuf Karsh was born in Mardin, Turkey, on December 23, 1908. His family, of Armenian descent, fled to Syria in 1922 to escape persecution. In 1924, Karsh arrived in Canada to live with his uncle George Nakash, a successful portrait photographer in Sherbrooke, Quebec. Although his uncle had a profound effect on his early years, it was Karsh's apprenticeship with John. H. Garo of Boston which introduced him to the world of the salon. The Boston aristocracy was Garo's clientele, and in his studio, Karsh honed both the technical and social skills essential to photographing famous people.

In 1932 Karsh moved to Ottawa where he first encountered theatre photography which became a defining influence on his style. He also developed contacts with a range of Ottawa's society, and with visiting dignitaries willing to be captured in his distinctive and dramatic portraits. As he became widely known in Canada, he was a natural choice to photograph the wartime visit by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at the end of 1941. The resulting image immortalized Churchill's defiance and unconquerable stand against the enemy, and placed Karsh firmly in the international arena of photography.

Karsh's international career, during which he photographed some eleven thousand personalities from many walks of life, lasted until his retirement in 1992, when he closed his studio in the Chateau Laurier. At that time, the National Archives of Canada brought the remaining material from Karsh's studio together with the substantial acquisition first made in 1987, assembling the complete Yousuf Karsh Fonds under one roof. In 1997 Yousuf Karsh and his wife Estrellita settled in Boston, Massachusetts, where on July 13, 2002, Yousuf Karsh died, having left a legacy to the world of some of the greatest and most beloved portraits of the 20th century.


1. Ossip Zadkine, sculptor
1965


2. Sophia Lauren ,
actress
1982


3. Jessye Norman,
singer
1990


4. Michael Collins, Edwin Aldrin and Neil Armstrong
astronauts for Apollo 11
1969


5. Pierre Elliott Trudeau
Prime Minister of Canada, 1968-1979, 1980-1984
1968


6.Jean-Paul Riopelle
painter
1965


7.Estrellita Karsh
medical historian and writer
1963


8.Joan Crawford
actress
1948


9.Georgia O'Keeffe
painter
1956


10.Audrey Hepburn
actress
1956


11.Albert Einstein
physicist (The Nobel Prize in Physics 1921)
1948


12.Ernest Hemingway
writer (The Nobel Prize in Literature 1954)
1957


13.John F. Kennedy
35th president of the United States
1960


14.Prince Rainier III and Princess Grace (Grace Kelly) of Monaco
1956


15.Pablo Casals
cellist, conductor and composer


16.Martha Graham
dancer and choreographer
1948


17.Humphrey Bogart
actor
1946


18.Anita Ekberg
actress
1956


19.Glenn Gould
pianist
1957


20.Paul Robeson
singer, actor and activist
1938


21.Winston Churchill
politician and historian (The Nobel Prize in Literature 1953)
1941


22.George Bernard Shaw
playwright and philosopher (The Nobel Prize in Literature 1925)
1943