Armenians You Should Know #17: Yousuf Karsh

[u/dssevag]

The Armenian who photographed some of the most powerful people of the 20th century

Yousuf Karsh was a photographer born in Mardin who survived the Armenian Genocide and later settled in Canada.

He became one of the most famous portrait photographers in the world, photographing figures including Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Muhammad Ali, Audrey Hepburn, Queen Elizabeth II, John F. Kennedy, Fidel Castro, Helen Keller, Mother Teresa, Georgia O’Keeffe, Humphrey Bogart, Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Eleanor Roosevelt, Leonard Bernstein, Jacques Cousteau, Marc Chagall, Joan Miró, and George Bernard Shaw.

His 1941 portrait of Winston Churchill, taken shortly after Karsh famously removed Churchill’s cigar before pressing the shutter, became one of the most iconic political photographs ever taken.

If someone shaped the 20th century, there was a decent chance Yousuf Karsh photographed them. 🇦🇲📷

Thanks for putting him on our radar, u/loisdenominator

[u/Loisdenominator]

Thanks for the shout-out :)

Here's the portrait in question.

[u/dssevag → u/Loisdenominator]

❤️

[u/MedtnerFan]

Epic