Yousuf Karsh: A Fifty-Year Retrospective & Portraits [PDF scans]

Karsh: A Fifty-Year Retrospective



https://www.amazon.com/Karsh-fifty-year-retrospective-Yousuf/dp/0821215493

The term "iconic" gets tossed around a lot, but that is what this book consists of: iconic images. Whether you know it or not, Karsh is the photographer who probably shaped your image of who Hemingway is, who Churchill is, who Einstein is, who Bogart is, and on, and on. The photographic school on display is classic, formal, and dramatic mid-century 20th century photography. It is quite grand in style while still revealing the human being behind the image. Karsh is a great craftsman who brings unabashed enthusiasm for the power of celebrity -- in these two ways, he has probably most influenced the history of photography.​

Karsh Portraits



https://www.amazon.com/Karsh-Portraits-Yousuf/dp/0821206060

Yousuf Karsh is a classic portrait artist of the camera, photographer of the world's great. To be photographed by Karsh has been a sign of personal accomplishment for a third of a century. During that time his camera lens has repeatedly -- and unforgettably -- recorded the illuminating gesture, the unique attitude, the moment's reflection, to create a definitive picture of one celebrated personality after another. Here in one volume are forty-eight memorable portraits from the Karsh portfolio. they form an imposing cross-section of the figures who have shaped our public life and private thoughts.

Some of the faces are familiar: the qualities of greatness that make a Churchill, a Shaw, a Hemingway, an Einstein, a Casals, a Sibelius, or a Schweitzer are not eclipsed even within a full generation. Here also are new views of Henry Moore, Marshall McLuhan, and Pablo Picasso and recent portraits of other figures, never before published together in a book by Karsh. The new portraits reflect the rapidly changing world of the seventies -- Muhammad Ali, Fidel Castro, Prince Charles, Jacques Cousteau, Norman Mailer, Vladimir Nabokov -- and Karsh's continuing interest in the advance of medical science: Hans Selye and Helen Taussig. To reproduce with fidelity the velvety blacks and brilliant highlights of Karsh's original mat-finish prints, this book employs sheet-fed gravure and the finest in printing craftsmanship. Karsh's portraits are world-famous because he has intense interest in his subjects.

Each portrait is accompanied by Karsh's recollections of the moments when the picture was taken. The result is a record of extraordinary personal rapport and technical skill. Many of these images will endure -- as great portraits and remarkable photographs. As a reviewer has said of Karsh's work: 'He makes visible what others only sense; he makes pictorial what to others is only a mood.'


Mirror below . . .