Photo: Christophe Lebrun / Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris
February 3, 2007
France Welcomes Karsh
By Yves Théoret, Director, Exhibitions and Interpretation, Portrait Gallery of Canada
More than 100 "guests" were invited to France's first retrospective exhibition of Yousuf Karsh (1908–2002), a Canadian photographer of Armenian descent and a leading figure in twentieth-century photography. Attending the event were Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Albert Camus, Andy Warhol, Richard Strauss, John F. Kennedy, Alberto Giacometti, Albert Einstein, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Man Ray and Igor Stravinsky, as well as theatre and cinema cult figures Louis Jouvet, Orson Welles, Alain Delon, Brigitte Bardot and Anita Ekberg.
Théâtre de la photographie et de l’image de Nice
Entitled "Yousuf Karsh. Portraits," the exhibition opened with a splash at the Théâtre de la photographie et de l'image de Nice, where it ran from September 12 to November 19, 2006, as part of Septembre de la photo 2006. It was the closing event of The Year of Canada in Nice before moving on to the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris from November 30, 2006 to February 3, 2007, as part of France's Year of Armenia.
The exhibition featured original prints from Library and Archives Canada's major Karsh fonds, which is composed of 300,000 negatives, photographic prints and transparencies, representing the creative output of Karsh's 60-year career.
The exhibition was organized by the Théâtre de la Photographie et de l'Image de Nice in cooperation with the Portrait Gallery of Canada, a program of Library and Archives Canada. The Gallery's Director General, Ms. Lilly Koltun, PhD, wrote the main text of the exhibition catalogue Yousuf Karsh: Frame, Focus, Fame.
To learn more about the Karsh Collection, please visit Library and Archives Canada's virtual exhibition "Karsh Masterworks – A Tribute."
www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/karsh/index-e.html
Also Related…
"Karsh, la cerise sur le gotha," Libération, October 23, 2006.
www.liberation.fr/culture/212295.FR.php
"Yousuf Karsh, galerie d'icônes," Le Monde, January 14, 1007.
www.lemonde.fr/cgi-bin/ACHATS/acheter.cgi?offre=ARCHIVES &type;_item=ART_ARCH_30J&objet;_id=972971
