Heritage- In Search of Greatness

In this book Yousuf Karsh, whose great photographic portraits have revealed so vividly the outstanding personalities of our time, writes about his own life and work. It is the story of an Armenian immigrant boy who rose to be the world's finest portrait photographer. In this book Yousuf Karsh, whose great photographic portraits have revealed so vividly the outstanding personalities of our time, writes about his own life and work. It is the story of an Armenian immigrant boy who rose to be the world's finest portrait photographer, whose pictures, reproduced in newspapers, magazines, and books, and shown in museums, art galleries and exhibitions, have been admired by hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. Of his early years in Armenia, Karsh gives a brief but compelling account, writing without bitterness but not sparing the reader the impact on his youthful mind of the brutalities, massacres, and atrocities of that time. The dramatic impression made on him by his first experiences as a young citizen of Sherbrooke, Quebec. His several years of study in Boston with the famous photographer, Garo, show the gradual development of his ideas and skills in portraiture. In 1932, Karsh opened his own studio in Ottawa, capital city of Canada, and there he met Solange Gauthier, the volatile, charming, and practical Frenchwoman whom he married. Together they established his world-wide reputation. Karsh takes the reader with him to his sittings, and shows how he seeks to bring out the essence of the personalities he is portraying. The reader accompanies Karsh and Madam Karsh as they travel to Washington, New York, Hollywood, across Canada and to the Arctic, and on their European tours, photographing and interviewing statesmen, tycoons, artists, actors, musicians, popes,…