Yousuf Karsh (It Helps to Have a Mission)

Yousuf Karsh, Self Portrait [with 8x10 negative in holder], 1954

Yesterday I journeyed to Corning to the Rockwell Museum with my friend Geoff Wittig. He's a primary care physician from nearby* Dansville and, despite being busy at his job, he's very interested in, and engaged with, art—a longtime landscape photographer, he took up plein air landscape painting four years ago. We went to see a small show of photographs by the late "Karsh of Ottawa," midcentury portraitist extraordinaire. 

The Museum is really nice and the little gallery where rotating exhibits are shown is really nice, except for one little glitch, namely, the automated sliding entrance doors. Whenever you stand looking at one of the pictures hung next to either of the doors, the door unhelpfully slides open and shut, open and shut, again and again, like a demented servant demanding to be of assistance, until you move on. Like those "motion activated" paper towel dispensers in public restrooms that never quite work right, this strikes me as one of those problems that were formerly solved but that we have un-solved. Really, it is not necessary to motorize every single thing. A manual door with a handle on it would have been sufficient, and familiar.

One big advantage of never having engaged with a particular artist: it means there are still new works of his or hers for you to discover. I saw several new Karshes in this show that I had never seen before—one of Helen Keller, and a particularly nice print of his picture of Russel Wright. Some of the new-to-me ones I liked better than the big hits, although Karsh's celebrated portrait of Georgia O'Keeffe is a masterpiece, enjoyable online or in reproduction but considerably better in the original. The gallery lighting was sufficient, if barely—the darks in the prints were somewhat too dark and could have used a few more lumens of light. Some prints don't come fully alive until you have enough light shining on them, and Karsh would have been printing for more generous lighting conditions.

All the placards were about the subjects. I learned that "Jacqueline Bouvier was working as an 'inquiring camera girl' for the Washington Times-Herald when she began dating Congressman John F. Kennedy in 1952." There was very little on offer (well, that I managed to find) about the show itself, which originated at the National Portrait Gallery and features prints that were given to the NPG by Karsh's wife Estrellita after his death at age 93 in 2002. The show was curated by Ann Shumard, who has been the National Portrait Gallery’s senior curator of photographs since 2001. I reached out to Ann to find out a little more about how she curated the show, but her answering machine says she's out of the office until Monday. Seeing as I myself have been out of the office recently, I can't complain. If I do hear from her, I'll post an update.

In the main informational wall bloc about Karsh, it relates that he apprenticed in Boston to photographer John H. Garo, and that by the time he returned to Canada, he had "set his heart on photographing those men and women who leave their mark on the world." Well. That's a mission statement, right there. It helps to have a mission.

A rewarding day. I enjoy Geoff's company a lot, and it was good to get out of my usual routine, and it is always a pleasure to look at prints.

Mike
(Thanks to Geoff)

*Nothing is nearby anything here in Upstate. What I mean is that Dansville isn't really far away, only far away.

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Here’s the situation

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

John W: "Many years ago while I was still living in Ottawa I worked for a company named Ginn Photographic, the largest camera store in Ottawa. I had the pleasure and honour of meeting and serving Mr. Karsh on a couple of occasions; he was a close friend of the Ginn family. He was a small (5'4"), dapper man who looked more like a very successful banker than a photographer and was unfailingly gracious and polite. What a pleasure....

"Yet we probably saw more of his lesser-known younger brother Malak's work. Malak Karsh was an award winning landscape, commercial and illustrative photographer who also frequented Ginn Photographic. Both are national treasures of Canada and the photographic world."

Earl Dunbar: "In 1974 I spent a few nights in Ottawa between Christmas and New Year's day. My colleagues and I stayed at Chateau Laurier, next to Parliament. In the lobby were Karsh originals and wow, I was blown away. This was before I seriously took up photography, so those prints served as a seminal event and inspiration to plunge into the art and craft. Unrelated but seared into my brain was watching the CBC news television broadcast of the death of Jack Benny on Boxing Day. I also had my first ever bowl of French onion soup in the restaurant frequented by members of Parliament, Ottawa mandarins, and others in the political class who were, of course, not in town. It still feels surreal."

Wolfgang Lonien: "Am I the only one who finds the English term 'print' to be a bit lacking? It doesn't make any difference if you develop an original onto photographic paper in the darkroom, dodge and burn old style with your hands or other helpers, and then really develop it in chemicals—compared to what simply comes out of a printer, and what can be reproduced at the press of a button. I really think there should be different words for it, as the results are so hugely different—especially in black and white—that 'print' simply doesn't give it justice (and makes it hard for a potential buyer of art to distinguish between the two, except of course that you will see it). Sorry about my short 'rant.' In German we would say Photoabzug or Ausbelichtung instead of Druck (print). Only the latter would come out of a printer. But no dictionary I've found makes any difference in (British or American) English."

Mike replies: And "print" further conflates with what comes off a printing press, as in the phrase "in print." Photographic terminology has always bugged me—there are lots of small awkwardnesses and oddities and even a few outright misnomers.

Regarding what you're talking about, I would say we usually distinguish in English by adding words—the first type of print you speak of, and what I was looking at in the exhibit, would usually be called "silver gelatin prints," the latter kind "inkjet prints" which then might get a further descriptor such as "pigment" or "dye" perhaps. And that's just the tip of the iceberg—there are a great many kinds of prints.

But of course those additional descriptors usually get dropped in repeated mentions and casual speech.

William Furniss: "I had a similar experience (the work not the doors) at the Sally Mann exhibit at the Getty Centre in Los Angeles 10 days ago. I had no idea she had done so much work beyond photographing her family, to point it is a shame she is so well known for that work. Her pictures of battlefields are amazing and her tintypes in person are really special; anyone in the Los Angeles area should go."

Benjamin Marks: "Just out of interest, Mike, were there any of Karsh's photographs that showed evidence of retouching with pencil? I saw an exhibit of Karsh's work in Montreal (I think), and the pictures I saw were retouched in this way. I don't know whether it was because the photographs were intended for reproduction or whether they were work prints, but I was impressed with his desire to do what was necessary to get the shot 'right' for its intended purpose, whatever it was. Karsh's pictures, or many of them anyway, are the pictures that come to mind when I think of the subjects. His 'Winston Churchill' is like that."

Mike replies: The only picture I thought looked retouched was his picture of FDR, who was standing—knowing FDR could not stand unassisted, it's easy to see him hanging on to the fellow next to him, and other things about the print seemed a bit off to me, although I couldn't tell you exactly how. It's exotic to think, now, that FDR's disability was kept mostly hidden from the public.

Photo by Robert Demachy (imitation of sanguine [red chalk] drawing)

Retouching was quite common with large negatives (it's far easier to retouch a large negative than a small one), especially among portraitists. If you've ever read Edward Weston's Daybooks, he frequently grouses bitterly about the demands of his retouching tasks on his time. You can't help but feel this influenced his later artistic principles. Of course the pictorialists took it quite a bit further—photographers such as Robert Demachy created images that were meant to appear to be drawings, and partly were.

Kenneth Tanaka: "Good outing. Karsh’s portraits are polarizing among the photographic appreciation crowd. Many find them fascinating and engaging while many others find them phony and excessively theatrical, reflecting more of the photographer than his sitters. To the extent I think of them at all I am mostly of the former group, although the latter group makes a valid point.

"Some years back David Travis, the long-time former chair of the Department of Photography at the Art Institute of Chicago, curated a wonderful exhibition of Karsh’s work at the AIC. During the show Jerry Fielder, Karsh’s longtime assistant, visited to give a very memorable and revealing talk about Karsh’s practices and quirks. It was my introduction to Karsh, and a delightful one at that.

"The catalog from the show was excellent but is no longer in print, although it's available in the secondary market: Regarding Heroes. Interestingly, David Travis’ associated work, Karsh: Beyond the Camera is available in a Kindle edition (as well as paperback). It’s largely composed of Jerry Fielder’s tape transcripts of Karsh's recollections and is guaranteed to be worth the tiny cost for anyone who likes Karsh’s work or who’s interested in the history of celebrities."

Comments

[Robert Catto]

(* Ottawa, not Ottowa)

[Dave Hodson]

Karsh of Ottawa

[Speed]

A manual door with a handle on it is difficult or impossible to operate from a wheelchair or when using crutches. I guess that this automatic door needs some adjustment.

[Michael Perini]

You should just schedule regular time away.
Everyone needs time away from our routine.
Just say you are 'off to Sharpen the Saw'
You always sound better when you return.
How about some pix of Watkins Glen ?
Spring is coming......

[Jeff]

Same way I like to spend a free day, sometimes at the NPG. :)

Small detail.... no need to publish... it’s spelled O’Keeffe. (Helps to have once lived in New Mexico.)

[Richard Man]

I would love to see this. Karsh is one of my favorite portraitists.

[MikeR]

Probably TOO far, but the Barnes in Philly will have an exhibition starting Feb 24th: "From Today, Painting Is Dead: Early Photography in Britain and France"

My wife and I are going to the Brandywine River Museum for the last weekend of "Winslow Homer: Photography and the Art of Painting" (NB: the area is home turf for the notable Wyeth family artists)

It's good to cross over into other art forms. An Andrew Wyeth retrospective a number of years ago influenced me greatly.

[Steven Friedman]

Hi Mike

The spelling is Ottawa not Ottowa. I hope it is ok to point this out to you.

I was born in Ottawa and spent thirty years living in the city. I got my start in photography after finding a Minolta X7a camera at a view point in the Gatineau Park. It was late autumn, I called the Park Service and gave the particulars of the camera. No one claimed it, I had my first camera. I started out hiking over twenty miles at a time with the camera and a couple lenses. It started out as documented the hiking experience to an obsession in producing large prints for galleries and corporate collections.

Steven

[D. B. Elias]

It’s “Karsh of OttAwa” (capital of Canada) not OttOwa, by the way.

[Gary Nylander]

I have always enjoyed the work of Karsh and he's from Canada too!

[Daniel]

Ah yes..., the "Automatic Door". It is a door that opens automatically - it is not an "automatic door". Damnable things - but they do make it easier for those with handicaps to enter and exit.
Karsh of Ottawa - one of the finer things Canada has given the world. Maybe even up there with Rapeseed being renamed Canola?

[tex andrews]

Hey, Mike. Here's a thought (that you may have/probably have already had): guest curators discussing something of interest. Could be a short interview, could be just some pithy paragraphs from them. Seeing as how you are reaching out to a curator....

[Huw Morgan]

Did Ottawa really get misspelled in your quote?

[Toronto Tom]

Hi Mike,
Typo Alert!
Re: "Karsh of Ottowa", midcentury portraitist extraordinaire.
The spelling of the capital city of Canada is incorrect. Correct spelling is "Ottawa".
Somebody's spell-checker is either not working or has been corrupted.
Happy Family Day weekend to you!

[Chris S]

Ah, Mike, that's Ottawa not Ottowa. You know, the capital of Canada...

[Les Myers]

"Karsh of Ottowa." I can see why you spelled Ottowa that way. NY State has an Ottowa. I was born in Ottawa, Illinois, and have appreciated Karsh, from Ottawa. Pronunciation doesn't seem to suffer either way.

[Dave Van de Mark]

When I was young, growing up in Southern California, my parents subscribed to a dimensionally large "magazine" printed on very fine paper, called "Wisdom". On the front and back covers were portraits by Karsh. While I was no student of art at the time, I felt the reproduction quality was very high with extraordinary detail. So taken by these images, I kept the magazines with me when I moved to northwest California in 1963. As time passed, the weight and size of this collection led me to dispose of it during a local move. I have always regretted not keeping them.

[Richard Alan Fox]

A fixed print, a fugitive print, a camera obscura projection, the image on my phone still until scrolled.
All beautiful or not.
Thank you.

[Lindsay Bach]

The FDR photo strikes me as more "staged" than "retouched." FDR could stand with leg braces under his trousers (which make his legs appear really straight) but he had to hold on to something -- a railing or often the arm of an assistant, which in this image is son James. Somewhere in Guy Davenport's essays I remember Davenport's account of being taken to a train station as a child in his hometown in South Carolina to see FDR at a whistle-stop. There, Davenport witnessed the President fall flat on his face and be quickly stood up again by his aides. Yes, FDR could not walk, but he could stand with assistance from leg braces and a hand-hold.

[Andy Wilkes]

I guess a primary care physician is what we in the UK would call a General Practitioner (Still considered 'Primary Care'). The heroes of a health care system - they have to cope with anything that comes at them. Also I have been often amazed at how doctors can live 2 or more full lives at the same time. Ther are some people you really would trust with your life and it has been my pleasure to work with them.
You have given me a great desire to know nore about Karsh.

[c.d.embrey]

Sliding doors are very helpful if you use a wheelchair.

[Tom Hassler]

If you look closely at the picture of FDR, you can see that he has his hand in the crook of the elbow of his son (who is standing next to him,) likely to help his steadiness. It's very subtle - FDR was known to not want his physical limitations to appear as weakness.

[David W. Scott]

I saw a Karsh exhibit at the McMichael gallery a few years ago, and it taught me two things:

1. Great photos can survive flaws, and
2. Don't be afraid to retouch and be aggressive in printing techniques.

Looking closely at one of my favourites, Karsh's portrait of Hemingway in a cable knit sweater, the focus was clearly on Hemingway's whiskers and not on his eyes, which were actually soft. It didn't harm the picture one bit.

The exhibit had a lovely reconstruction of Karsh's retouching table, where one of his industrial images of Atlas Steel was being readied for printing. The original negative was being pin-registered and sandwiched with a retouching layer. Aggressive masking was underway, wholly transforming the original image from a perfunctory record of man and machine into an iconic celebration of industrialism. The careful and elaborate post-production work undertaken by Karsh freed me from my prejudices against artistic use of Photoshop on "straight" photography.

[hugh crawford]

Well you are going to name check pencil retouchers, you can't leave out William Mortensen.

[Ian Seward]

"A manual door with a handle on it would have been sufficient, and familiar.

Best not forget that for people who are less able an automatic door is quite helpful.

Ian

[MartinP]

I have just ordered myself a copy of 'Regarding Heroes' so I hope that it arrives in one piece after crossing the Atlantic (apparently).

The electric doors are very useful for many people, but I can't help wondering about the positions chosen for the sensors. Rather than looking almost horizontally into the room or hallway, from above the door, it would often be more sensible to have the sensor a meter or so from the wall containing the door and 'looking' downwards and parallel to the wall, perhaps positioned on the ceiling. Simple masking of the sensor itself could then limit the action of the door to when someone approaches it, maybe into an area subtly marked out on the floor. Luckily I am not an architect, else I would know why door sensors are invariably specified to be as cheap and inconvenient as possible.

[Jim Arthur]

I like Karsh’s environmental portraits. I also like the scale of the prints in the exhibit.

MythBusters has an episode where they defeat a home security motion sensor with a white bed sheet. I wonder if some sort of soft partition extending out from the wall would have solved the door issue.

[Dave Jenkins]

I think the best measure of Karsh's success in achieving his mission is the fact that when you think of so many significant people of his era the image of them that comes to mind is Karsh's portrait.

[Dave Jenkins]

We're getting kinda off-topic here, but since we are, I'll mention that the only extant image of Roosevelt that shows his braces is the statue at one of his favorite places, Dowdell Knob on Pine Mountain, near his home at Warm Springs in Northwest Georgia. He is depicted seated on a bench, with his braces on the outside of his trousers.

I have a photo, but have never been able to figure out how to post one on this site.

[Nick]

Mike, there's a nice video by Sean Tucker that uses the story of Karsh's portrait of Winston Churchill as a lead-in to his take on the job of a portrait photographer. If you're not familiar with him, I think you'll like Sean Tucker's demeanor--and he's got an unusual backstory, too, that he opens up about in other videos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjybkV41YoE

[Mathew Hargreaves]

I am coming really late on this article. I have seen that red chalk picture before which I believe originates from the Getty Archives. The orange value is too high I so I do not think it represents Sanguine correctly. It just may be a poor reproduction or the original print is more orange than most "Red Chalk" prints of that period. I bought some real sanguine chalk so I could figure out a method to accurately create the color digitally. Having done that I need to figure out what lens will give me a comparable soft quality with a good region of defocus. In a world of well focusing lenses, it is a difficult area to research but I have a few choices.

CHEERS...