EXHIBITION SHOWS KARSH BUILT IMMORTALITY ON MORE THAN TECHNIQUE
Brandon Sun
Monday, June 29th, 2009
OTTAWA – The photographs of Yousef Karsh are technical marvels –
exquisitely lit, sublimely detailed, masterfully printed.
But it was the man himself who transformed an Armenian immigrant
into ‘Karsh of Ottawa’, a raconteur and photographic virtuoso through
whose lenses generations of world leaders, celebrities and cognoscenti
sought immortality.
Personable, engaging and curious, Karsh knew how to draw out his
subjects and reveal through his predominantly black-and-white images
something of their souls.
"He was very sensitive to his sitters and a very insightful artist
who was able to draw out expressions, poses, moods in the portrait
session which were really quite extraordinary," says Brian Dewalt,
curator of communications at the Canada Science and Technology Museum.
Ottawa’s science-and-tech museum may seem a strange place to celebrate
a portrait master’s 100th birthday, but this is an exhibition with
a difference.
Part of the citywide Festival Karsh (), "Karsh:
Image Maker" follows the process surrounding what the master described
as the elusive "moment of truth."
As pointed out in the exhibition’s promotional material, his signature
style was "the result of many meticulous artistic and technical
decisions."
It also came from charm, personality and understanding.
The exhibition draws on the extensive resources of Library and Archives
Canada and the Portrait Gallery of Canada. It showcases some of his
most famous photographs while exploring his work behind the scenes
and exhibiting some of the equipment he used.
There are his impressive 8×10 cameras, the huge enlarger he and
his master printer used, as well as displays showing their printing
processes and techniques.
There is, of course, a collection of his exquisite prints reflecting
the hope of Nelson Mandela, the beauty of Audrey Hepburn, the vision
of Fidel Castro, the promise of Martin Luther King, the depth of
Albert Schweitzer, the intensity of Glenn Gould and, most famously,
the bulldog defiance of Winston Churchill.
But perhaps the most revealing element of the exhibition is a series of
small prints of Karsh himself, at work and at play. There are pictures
with his mother, at work in the studio, on location and with a series
of personalities from politicians and actors to wildlife photographer
Ansel Adams and puppeteer Jim Henson.
They show a dapper man humble and joyful in his work – loved, trusted,
respected, totally at ease with his tools and his subjects.
Karsh usually worked away from his large-format camera, a "remote"
in his hand as he conversed with his subjects, asking questions,
exchanging views, engaging them as he almost passively triggered
the shutter.
An assistant would manipulate the lights at his direction. The 8×10
and 5×7 cameras he most used held only one negative at a time. Each
image was a carefully chosen moment with profound undertones.
Churchill’s scowl, it is well known, was elicited when Karsh snapped
the cherished cigar from the British prime minister’s lips during a
two-minute session on Parliament Hill on Dec. 30, 1941.
"The Churchillian scowl deepened, the head was thrust forward
belligerently, and the hand placed on the hip in an attitude of anger,"
Karsh wrote in Faces of Our Time, his 10th of 15 books.
The image captured Churchill and the England of the time perfectly –
defiant and unconquerable.
It became one of the most reproduced photographs ever taken, used on
Churchill commemorative stamps in many countries, including Canada,
Britain, Australia, New Zealand and the United States.
There were many other memorable encounters over the years.
Karsh loved people, and could hold his own with the best of them.
His sessions were events in themselves and became renowned for their
repartee. An engaging, intelligent personality, he had a gift for
disarming his subjects, for dismantling the walls that people erect
between themselves and the camera – exposing, it seemed at his best
times, their very souls.
"He had a great ability to get right to the heart of the matter and
be able to put it into a photograph," his late brother, Malak Karsh,
a renowned architectural and landscape photographer, once said of him.
Karsh was polite and curious. He asked questions, elicited answers,
reflections, profound moods. His sessions became known as "visits"
and his subjects gave of themselves "with love and respect," said
his brother.
"People knew they had a master with them and they appreciated that
opportunity. They gave him the opportunity to find out what he needed
to know about them so he could render them in the best way possible."
Combined with his mastery of light and composition, it made a
formidable portraitist – a modern-day master, working most often in
shades of grey.
Karsh once said the fascination of greatness lies not in
accomplishments or physical features, but in the essential element
that created it.
"I call it the ‘inward power,"’ he wrote in Karsh Portfolio. "Within
every man and woman a secret is hidden, and as a photographer it is
my task to reveal it if I can."
"The revelation, if it comes at all, will come in a small fraction
of a second with an unconscious gesture, a gleam of the eye, a brief
lifting of the mask that all humans wear to conceal their innermost
selves from the world. In that fleeting interval of opportunity the
photographer must act or lose his prize."
Karsh was born in Turkey on Dec. 23, 1908. He died in Boston in 2002
at age 93.
The recipient of 17 honorary degrees and the only Canadian named
one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century by the
International Who’s Who (he had photographed more than half of them),
Karsh left behind a legacy for all the world.
His work is in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of
Canada, New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of
Art, George Eastman House, La Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, the
National Portrait Gallery in London, the National Portrait Gallery
of Australia and many others.
Canada’s national library and archive holds his complete collection,
including negatives, prints and documents. His photographic equipment
was donated to the Canada Science and Technology Museum.
"Karsh: Image Maker" continues at the science-and-tech museum through
Sept. 13 and is expected to go on national tour after that.
www.festivalkarsh.ca