Portrait Photographer Yousuf Karsh Dead at 93
All of his portraits were so incisive. You feel as if you can reach out and touch the living subject.
My favorite of his works was his portrait of Pablo Casals, back to the camera, playing his cello. I could hear the music just looking at that photograph.
I’m another admirer of Karsh’s penetrating photography. The Casals photo is remarkable because the face can’t be seen, but can be felt. His portrait of Tennessee Williams is almost as affecting as one of Williams’ plays. When I was just out of high school I used Karsh photographs of Churchill, Einstein and Pope John XXIII as the bases for charcoal sketches. Karsh’s work is proof (if any were needed) that photography is fine art. The world has lost a great artist.
I remeber an ad (for lack of a better term) that ran in some magazines back in the 70s. It was a page full of Karsh’s most famous photographs–with the one in the center blank.
The caption inside the blank “photo:” *“Yousuf Karsh reserves this spot in this gallery of famous people for the person who finds a cure for Muscular Dystrophy.”
*OK, it’s been a quarter of a century, so it might not be the exact wording."
I know diddly over squat about Youuf Karsh.
Except that he did the group shot for the back of Rush’s album, “Grace Under Pressure”.
Not his finest hour. Even Geddy later admitted it looked like a bar mitzvah photo.