Canada’s Yousuf Karsh, one of the greatest portrait photographers in the world, died Saturday (July 13, 2002) at the age of 93. In an illustrious career that spanned more than 60 years, he photographed some 15,000 famous people, among them many of the world’s most renowned politicians, artists, musicians, writers and royalty. He spent his last years in Boston.

He was born on December 23, 1908, in Mardin, in Armenian Turkey. His parents sent him to Canada in 1924 in order to escape the persecution of Armenians. He arrived in Nova Scotia, alone, at the age of 15. Yousuf’s uncle, George Nakash, had agreed to sponsor the young man in Canada. Nakash worked as a photographer in Sherbrooke, Quebec. In his 1962 autobiography, In Search of Greatness,Yousuf remembered his first day in Canada, after the ship docked in Halifax. “We went from the dock to the station in a taxi – a sleigh taxi drawn by horses with bells on their harness which never stopped tinkling. Everybody looked happy and I was intoxicated by their joy.”

Eight years later he set up shop in Ottawa as a photographer, helped along by no less than Prime Minister Mackenzie King, Karsh’s first mentor.

Karsh loved his work. “I look forward to every working day and I feel I am in the most exciting work in the world,” he once said. In his first book, Faces of Destiny, published in 1946, he explained that his goal as a portrait photographer was to portray the famous “both as they appeared to me and as they impressed themselves on their generation.”

Yousuf’s’s younger brother, Malak, died on November 8, 2001, at the age of 86. He, too, was a successful photographer. His most famous photograph was of logs floating in the Ottawa River behind Parliament Hill. It was used on the $1 bill. Malak, who followed Yousuf to Canada, also helped found the Ottawa Tulip Festival.

The story most frequently told of Yousuf Karsh was about the time he photographed Winston Churchill. It was in 1941, in Ottawa, following Churchill’s speech in the House of Commons. Prime Minister King arranged for a portrait session in the Speaker’s chamber. No one had told Churchill of the session, so after lighting up a cigar he growled, “Why was I not told of this?”

Karsh then asked Churchill to remove the cigar for the photographic portrait. When Churchill refused, Karsh, then 33, walked up to the great man, said, “Forgive me, sir,” and calmly snatched the cigar from Churchill’s lips. As Churchill glowered at the camera, Karsh snapped the picture. Karsh regards that portrait as among his three favourites, the other two being portraits of George Bernard Shaw and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Other famous Karsh portraits include Ernest Hemingway, Albert Einstein, Fidel Castro and John F. Kennedy (which appeared on the cover of Life).

The Churchill portrait made Karsh famous. He knew he had done an excellent job, but at the time he didn’t know how to market it. He sought advice from B.K. Sandwell, the publisher of the magazine Saturday Night. All Sandwell could advise Karsh was that he get an agent.

Whether he did or not isn’t clear, but Karsh eventually sold the photograph of Churchill to Life, which first used it on an inside page, then as its cover on May 21, 1945. After seeing Karsh’s photo of Churchill on the cover of Life, war correspondent Edward R. Murrow wrote, “Ah, here is the face which marshalled the English language and sent it into battle when we had little else.”

The magazine paid Karsh the munificent sum of $100.

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