Windsor Star (Ontario)
June 24, 2004 Thursday Final Edition
Shooting star: Karsh immortalized local Ford workers
by Grace Macaluso
Shirley Crapper vividly remembers the day her husband unknowingly
entered the realm of the famous. It was 1951, and 26-year-old Goward
Crapper had just returned home from his job on the assembly line at
Ford’s No. 4 plant. “Somebody took my picture at work,” he said. The
couple didn’t give the news much thought until finding out years
later that “someone” was world-renowned photographer Yousuf Karsh.
“We were excited,” recalls Shirley. “My husband is a VIP. His picture
and Winston Churchill’s picture are in the same book by Karsh.”
Goward Crapper died in 1987, but he along with other working-class
heroes have been immortalized in a collection of black and white
photographs that will be exhibited from Saturday to Aug. 29 at the
Art Gallery of Windsor.
“Anything Karsh touched turned into gold, and for one of Canada’s
most famous artists to be connected to Windsor is significant,” says
Cassandra Getty, collections manager at the AGW. “He put a face on an
aspect of Windsor that has made Windsor — the auto industry.”
The show coincides with the 100th anniversary of Ford of Canada,
which had commissioned the photographer better known for his photos
of popes and world leaders to take pictures of its employees in
Windsor.
Karsh delivered 31 finished prints to Ford, which featured some of
the photos in its annual report — published at the start of a
postwar decade that would be shaped by the rise of North American
industry and affluence. The photos reflect Karsh’s career as a
portrait photographer, which is gaining renewed attention, says
Getty. In his earlier career, Karsh practised pictorial photography
— a style prevalent in the late 1800s that was defined by the use of
“moody, dramatic and soft focus technique,” says Getty.
In portrait photography, there’s less manipulation. “It’s still
dramatic, but more assertive,” says Getty. “Everyone can see and
recognize Karsh’s style; it’s the epitome of portrait photography.
We’re going further and looking at his career and how it fit into the
greater culture and how culture affected him.”
The commission by Ford was the second for Karsh, whose photographs of
steelworkers in Canada and the United States are also part of the
collection in the AGW exhibit. “Instead of making leaders and
celebrities heroes, he made ordinary workers heroes,” says Getty.
The art gallery as well as Ford have been trying to locate some of
the original workers for the upcoming show, but with limited success
since many have died, says Getty. However, they did manage to track
down Bob Oloman, who enjoyed a 37-year career at Ford’s Oakville
operations before retiring in 1987.
Oloman was a 19-year-old trainee at the Ford trade school on
Riverside Drive when he and a small group of other students were
summoned to pose for Karsh
The photo shoot, “didn’t take very long,’ he recalls. “We were asked
to stand by a narrow window in a corner of the building.”
But Oloman, who plans to attend the official opening on Friday, says
the experience of being in a Karsh photo is a major source of pride.
“I feel very privileged, in small a small way, to be part of this
historical icon and Ford’s industrial history, which has been
preserved in a unique way.”
Shirley Crapper also is attending the opening in honour of both Karsh
and her husband, whose portrait is included in the photographer’s
last book, Heroes of Light and Shadow, published in 2000. Entitled
Rear Window, the picture frames Crapper’s handsome face and arms
through the rear window of a car as he looks directly into the
camera.
One critic said the photograph “evokes the erotic smouldering of a
James Dean.”
“This has been quite the experience,” says Shirley. “Gow’s picture
has hung in the National Art Gallery in Ottawa. He never knew just
how famous he became.”
YOUSUF KARSH AT A GLANCE
– Yousuf Karsh (1908-2002)
– Portrait photographer
– Grew up during the Armenian massacres
– Brought to Canada in 1924 by his uncle
– Brief schooling in Sherbrooke, Que.
– Apprenticed with portrait photographer John Garo of Boston
– Opened his studio in Ottawa in 1932
– A portrait of Winston Churchill in 1941 brought him international
prominence
– Work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art,
the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Art Institute of
Chicago, The National Portrait Gallery in London, and the National
Gallery of Canada
BOOKS INCLUDE:
– Faces of Destiny; portraits by Karsh (1946)
– Canada: as seen by the camera of Yousuf Karsh and described in
words by John Fisher (1960)
– In Search of Greatness; reflections of Yousuf Karsh (1962)
– Karsh Portfolio (1967)
– Karsh Portraits (1976)
– Karsh Canadians (1978)
– Karsh: a Fifty-year Retrospective (1983)
– Karsh: American Legends (1992)
– Karsh: Heroes of Light and Shadow (2000)
— George Eastman House,
KARSH STUDIED MAN’S RELATIONSHIP WITH MACHINES
Yousuf Karsh and his wife, Solange, spent several days surveying,
interviewing and photographing workers at the Ford of Canada
operations.
In an interview at the time with the Windsor Daily Star, Karsh
explained how he viewed his assignment, particularly man’s
relationship with machines:
“This is not a study of the Great Machine. This series is a portrait
of the working man — the Ford worker. They are not part of the Great
Machine. They give the Great Machine life. The man is important, the
operation is secondary. The operation and the machine give my subject
the atmosphere — it is the background.”
The Ford plant itself seemed to overwhelm Karsh. “The production line
moves on, as endless as time. Karsh stands off to the side, his
assistants carrying his equipment. He is in deep thought, his index
finger to his lip. He studies. He shakes his head, then mutters with
astonishment, “It is so complicated … There are a lot of stories in
this plant.”
— The Windsor Daily Star, Feb. 13, 1951
GRAPHIC: Photo: Brent Foster, Star photo; LOOKING BACK: Shirley
Crapper holds a photo of her husband, Goward, called Rear Window
taken by Yousuf Karsh in 1951 at the Windsor Ford plant. ; Photo: ON
THE JOB: Emric (Jimmy) Saska, set-up man, Plant No. 2, Valve
Department No. 39, in 1951 photo by Yousuf Karsh taken at the Ford
Motor Company of Canada plant in Windsor.; Photo: WORKING: William N.
Hagen, Plant No. 2, Camshaft Department, Ford Motor Company of
Canada, photographed by Yousuf Karsh in 1951.; Photo: DASHBOARD: Rene
Gabriau, Frank Hebert and Ross Ryan, photographed by Yousuf Karsh at
Ford Motor Company of Canada in 1951.; Photo: Windsor Star, File;
FAMOUS PHOTOGRAPHER: Yousuf Karsh poses at the Ford plant in 1951
while shooting his portraits of workers.