Karsh: Beyond the Camera

A retrospective of Karsh’s work, this collection features 74 duotone photographs that span the portraitist’s 50-plus–year career. Included are many of Karsh’s best-known portraits—Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, Vladimir Nabokov—reproduced by Karsh’s preferred Swiss printer. This striking compilation reminds us of the portrait’s significance in predigital culture, and of the mystique true film could achieve in the hands of a master of light and composition. These joys alone warrant spending time with the book, yet the ground this collection breaks has to do with the text (taken from transcripts of a 1988 interview) that accompanies each photograph. The photographer conveys as much about his admiration for Albert Einstein as he does the challenge of lighting the scientist’s face “in all its rough grandeur.” Karsh also recounts having to ask Ernest Hemingway’s wife to leave a 1957 shoot, describing the celebrated writer as “the shyest man I have ever photographed.” Famously reticent about his work, this is a rare invitation to learn the stories behind Karsh’s most famous meetings with great men and women, and of his aesthetic choices when met with the challenge of capturing them as they were.(Aug.)