Yousuf Karsh (1908-2002)

• portrait photographer
• born to an Armenian family in Mardin, Turkey, December 23, 1908
• died July 13, 2002
• grew up during the Armenian massacres
• brought to Canada in 1924 by his uncle
• brief schooling in Sherbrooke, Quebec
• 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)
• view his work:
• Weston Gallery
• Artcyclopedia

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