Famous people of the last century 2 (32 photos)

29 January 2025

645

Category: photographs and photographic works, 0+

Portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh

Lord Louis Mountbatten, 1943.

The master of studio portraiture spent his entire long career in search of greatness of spirit, striving to “ignite the emotions of the viewer” and “bare the soul” of the person being portrayed. The human face in his lens acquired a heroic monumentality and turned into a legend.

Yousuf Karsh was born in 1908 to an Armenian family in Mardin (southeastern Turkey). When the Armenian genocide began, the family had to flee to Syria. A few years later, his parents sent Yousuf to Canada, where his uncle lived. Here, the famous portrait artist's career began.

At first, Karsh worked in the studio of his relative, who, having recognized talent in his nephew, sent him to Boston to study with portrait photographer John Garo. He turned out to be a wise mentor and advised Karsh to attend evening art classes, study the works of great masters of painting, especially Rembrandt and Velazquez. Four years later, he returned to establish his own photography studio in downtown Ottawa.

The Armenian-Canadian portrait artist created his own style in the art of portrait photography. He abandoned decorative draperies and masterfully used lighting, creating a background, an impression of space and depth. His photographs convey the character of the person captured, caught in a turn of the head, a gesture, a facial expression. As Peter Pollack wrote in his book From the History of Photography: “Yousuf Karsh turns the human face into a legend in his powerful portraits.”

The most famous people in the world posed for him. “I was as nervous as in my apprentice days in Boston,” the photographer admitted. Before shooting, he made it a rule to “do homework” - to learn as much as possible about each person he was going to portray. He followed this principle throughout his career, wherever he went - to Zululand, Japan, Great Britain, Russia, Finland, Scandinavia or Egypt.

Maya Plisetskaya, 1963.

Marc Chagall, 1965.