Press Herald, Maine
Sept 19 2010
Faces by Yousuf Karsh
A portfolio of images by the great 20th-century portrait photographer
is on display in Thomaston.
By Bob Keyes [email protected]
Staff Writer
THOMASTON – For Yousuf Karsh, the first image of North America came
from the uncomfortable confines of a crowded ocean liner.
The year was 1925, and he was a 17-year-old Armenian refugee arriving
on a winter day at the frozen docks of Halifax. He had limited
language skills, but with the help of an uncle, he managed to make a
life in Quebec.
Uncle Nakash worked as a photographer, and took his nephew under his
wing. He gave Karsh his first camera and sent him out into the world
to learn and explore through the lens.
Karsh, who died in 2002 in Boston, became a famous photographer,
excelling in the field of black-and-white portraiture. His best-known
portrait is of Winston Churchill, taken in 1941 when the British prime
minister visited Ottawa.
The portrait — a pugnacious Churchill scowling at the camera, one
hand tucked on his hip — appeared on the cover of Life magazine,
became one of the most widely produced images in the history of
photography, and made Karsh famous.
With that image — and hundreds of others of 20th-century cultural
titans such as Ernest Hemingway, Robert Frost and Muhammad Ali —
Karsh distinguished himself for capturing the essence of his subject.
With his influence, he evolved portrait photography from a technical
pursuit into something entirely artistic.
A portfolio of 15 silver gelatin prints, most measuring 20 by 24
inches and including the Churchill portrait, is on view at the newly
opened Haynes Gallery in Thomaston, which operates in a restored
19th-century, Federal-style ship captain’s home on Main Street.
Karsh printed this portfolio in 1981, and all prints are signed and numbered.
Gallery owner Gary Haynes bought the Karsh portfolio a few years ago
after it had been in the collection of a major U.S. bank. He is
offering the portfolio for sale as part of this exhibition. Priced
individually, the portraits range from $10,000 for a 1948 portrait of
Albert Einstein to $25,000 for the Churchill.
“I bought them to sell them,” said Haynes, who collects and sells
mostly American realism paintings.
EARLY PROMISE
The Karsh portraits are significant because of the stature of the
subjects and the inventiveness of the photographer. Karsh got his
start as an apprentice to his uncle. He showed promise and commitment,
and his uncle arranged for Karsh to travel to Boston in the late 1920s
to work and study with the portrait photographer John H. Garo, who
also happened to be Armenian.
Garo helped form many of the technical foundations of Karsh’s
development, and also introduced him to classical learning. Karsh
thrived in Garo’s company, which included the leading intellectuals
and cultural contributors of the Boston scene.
Karsh was on his way. He spent three years with Garo, then returned to
Canada to open his own commercial studio in Ottawa.
Among those who visited the studio in Ottawa in the early 1930s were
Dr. Rupert and Estelle Esdale, a local couple. Karsh shot a series of
portraits, including single poses by Estelle.
The Esdale’s daughter, Gay Schueler, spends her summers in Camden.
When she learned about the show at the Haynes Gallery, she took the
photo of her mom off the wall and brought it down to the gallery.
Haynes immediately asked if he could include it in the show.
The Esdale portrait sits on a mantel in the gallery, just below Hemingway.
“She would be thrilled to be on view with all the greats of the 20th
century,” Schueler said, noting that her mother shares wall space with
Georgia O’Keeffe, Pablo Picasso and George Bernard Shaw.
In an autobiography, Karsh readily acknowledges the impact of the
Churchill photo.
“The world’s reception of that photograph — which captured public
imagination as the epitome of the indomitable spirit of the British
people — changed my life,” he wrote.
It might never have happened if not for Karsh’s gall.
Karsh arranged to photograph the British leader after a speech at the
Canadian capital. He set up his lights in the speaker’s chamber, and
turned them on when Churchill entered the room. The lights startled
Churchill, who was unaware that a photographer had been retained to
capture the event.
After a few awkward moments, Churchill consented to a pose and lit a
cigar. Karsh wanted Churchill without the cigar.
He writes, “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. 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.”
The scowl on Churchill’s face — the indignity of giving up his smoke
to a pushy photographer — became his visual trademark, and it was
formed largely through the Karsh image.
APPRECIATING GREATNESS
Haynes, the gallery owner, appreciates Karsh’s ability to achieve brilliance.
“As an artist and a collector, I like great craft. I appreciate
greatness in any pursuit. I just like people who do it better than you
ever could imagine anyone doing it, and Karsh is that guy,” Haynes
said.
Haynes, who considers himself a Sunday painter, has been a serious art
collector for about 30 years. He made his money in the advertising
business in Nashville, and rolled his business success into his
passion for art.
He was drawn to Maine by Andrew Wyeth. Haynes went to art school in
the 1960s. At the time, abstract expressionism was the popular trend,
yet Wyeth was accomplishing some of his best work as a devoted realist
painter. In addition to admiring Wyeth’s willingness to buck the
trend, Haynes appreciated the artist’s sense of design, medium and
subject matter.
“I moved to Maine because of him,” Haynes said. “I wanted to see what
he painted; I wanted to see what he saw.”
Haynes even went so far as to rent a house in Cushing near the Olson
House, where Wyeth made his best-known work, “Christina’s World.”
Among the Karsh photographs, Haynes is also showing and selling dozens
of paintings and drawings by Wyeth, Rockwell Kent and many
contemporary painters. The exhibition is on view through Oct. 23.
“Everything is for sale,” said Haynes, who owns a home in Owls Head
and plans to operate the Thomaston gallery on a seasonal basis.
“Why sell it? So I can buy something better. The beauty of having a
great collection is enjoying it. putting this out on view, I get to
talk about it and look at it every day.”
From: A. Papazian
http://www.pressherald.com/life/audience/karsh_2010-09-19.html