Karsh


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The opening at Sejong Museum of Art last week kicked off a two month-long exhibition there, with two more venues in Korea in the offing. 'The Exhibition of the Great Portraitist's Work KARSH' is a large and beautifully laid-out show; our fine art representative Jason Christian sent these photos of the venue. More info at the Visit Korea website, and a review here.

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© Jason Christian
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Karsh_Williams_Tennessee.jpgTwas a busy week for Karsh licensing. It is the centenary of the birth of Tennessee Williams and Newsweek used this great portrait to illustrate their article. I personally had not known that Williams "choked to death on a bottle cap in a drug-fueled haze" prior to reading the 2 page spread.

Williams portrait from 1956








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The stunning Princess Grace of Monaco is being used by the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt Design Museum here in New York to promote 'Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels' which is on now through May.

Grace portrait from 1956










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There's always good old Mother Teresa to be licensed. This time she's adorning an educational poster for a group in Pennsylvania.

Mother Teresa portrait from 1988

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It's also the centenary of the birth of Marshall McLuhan. Via Wikipedia - Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar - a professor of English literature, a literary critic, a rhetorician, and a communication theorist. McLuhan's work is viewed as one of the cornerstones of the study of media theory, as well as having practical applications in the advertising and television industries. McLuhan is known for coining the expressions 'the medium is the message' and 'the global village' and predicted the World Wide Web almost thirty years before it was invented. He was a fixture in media discourse from the late 1960s to his death and he continues to be an influential and controversial figure. More than ten years after his death he was named the 'patron saint' of Wired magazine.

McLuhan portrait from 1974   All images © Yousuf Karsh
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Here's an example of a more unusual portrait by Yousuf Karsh. Taken in 1967, it is of Emilio Pucci, fashion designer and politician, and his wife Baronessa Cristina Nannini. Mike Hartley of bigflannel, designer of both the Yousuf Karsh website and aCurator, says it's his favourite Karsh.

Emilio Pucci, 1967 © Yousuf Karsh
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At the Karsh Estate, we get word from various people when they find something of interest on the web. The curator at the Supreme Court was doing research and came across an article from Popular Science Magazine from 1952, which talks about Karsh and his techniques, his equipment, and his recent "branching out" into industrial work. It is noted that "...because he is fascinated by the human countenance his pictures of factory interiors have workmen's faces in the foreground."

Ford of Canada 'Rear Window', Gow Crapper, 1950 © Yousuf Karsh
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Karsh_Mandela_02.jpgI have worked with the Estate of Yousuf Karsh for several years, and I edited text for the official Yousuf Karsh website, but I still hear stories about the shoots that I have never heard before. Tooling around today I found a comment from 2009 in an article on The Online Photographer, Mike Johnston's extensive photo blog, about Karsh's most recent book 'Regarding Heroes', from a reader who had attended the opening at the Art Institute of Chicago. Director and Curator for the Estate, Jerry Fielder, had related the story of Karsh's 1990 session with Mandela, and confirms this is what happened.

I personally never had the opportunity to meet Mr Karsh but it's easy to gather he was extremely charming and entertaining. The commenter, Ken Tanaka, put it so well, I hope he doesn't mind me lifting his comment.

"In 1990 Karsh was to photograph Nelson Mandela. Mandela arrived at Karsh's studio in Ottawa with only an hour of rest after his long trip from South Africa. Karsh was normally a master of establishing quick rapport with his sitters but he could see that Mandela was just plain exhasuted and that getting that "public mask" off would be very hard at that moment.

So Karsh decided to try telling Mandela a story to warm things up. He recounted a recent session in which he photographed the Pope. While chatting, he asked him, "How many people work at the Vatican?". The Pope considered the question for a moment, as if trying to formulate an accurate answer, and then replied, "About half.". For a moment Mandela's exhaustion and troubles lifted as he found the little story hilarious. Click! Karsh managed to capture that moment in this portrait."

This is one of the results.

Nelson Mandela © Yousuf Karsh
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Currently showing through November 3rd 2010 at the USC Fisher Museum of Art is 'Regarding Heroes', an exhibition celebrating Karsh, "one of our greatest portrait photographers, whose portrait subjects include such political, social and literary figures as Nelson Mandela, Audrey Hepburn, Winston Churchill and Robert Frost."

If you're in LA on September 30th, at 7.30 pm pianist Victoria Kirsch will be joined by two fellow USC alumni, soprano Shana Blake Hill and bass-baritone Cedric Berry, for a program of vocal and instrumental music inspired by the portrait subjects featured in the exhibition. Actor Jamieson K. Price will read excerpts from Karsh's reminiscences of his photography sessions, revealing fascinating and sometimes surprising details about the iconic figures he photographed.

Visit the Karsh website for details.

Frank Lloyd Wright, 1945 © Yousuf Karsh
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Another gem from the Karsh archives. I recently watched the original 'Italian Job' for the umpteenth time - it features a stellar performance from Noel Coward as an overly-patriotic, jail-dwelling mobster (Donald Sutherland nominally takes this place in the not-too-awful remake).

Noel Coward, 1943 © Yousuf Karsh
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Ekberg-A.jpgUPDATE AUGUST 2010: The film has been nominated for two Gemini Awards. Congratulations to Ian McLaren of Productions Grand Nord in Canada.
Watch the trailer.


Thanks to Rob Haggart and Brian Clamp for sending information about the screening of the documentary "Karsh is History" at Foto Week DC on November 10th 2009. Productions Grand Nord, in association with The Portrait Gallery of Canada and BRAVO! present this 52 minute film about the life and talent of Mr Karsh which debuted at the Festival International Du Film Sur L'Art in Montréal in March. I'm in it, but Annie Liebovitz has a bit more camera-time.

Of Anita Ekberg, Karsh said "Her natural behavior resembled the love goddesses she portrayed - uninhibited and seductive, and totally without guile."

Anita Ekberg, 1956 © Yousuf Karsh


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Karsh_Churchill.jpgIt is 70 years ago today that Winston Churchill made his famous pronouncement in the House of Commons: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

Of his famous session with the PM, Karsh said "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."

Watch a reenactment of the making of the photograph on the Karsh website.

Winston Churchill, 1941 © Yousuf Karsh
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Karsh_Buffett_Warren.jpgDipping in to the Karsh archive to get some more prints digitized, I just cleaned up Warren Buffett. Buffett became a billionaire on paper in 1990, the year Karsh photographed him.

Warren Buffett, 1990 © Yousuf Karsh
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