Grey Owl

Grey Owl sat for Karsh in Ottawa in February 1936, under a broad-brimmed hat with long hair falling past his collar. The conservationist was famous for sharing his cabin with tame beavers and presented himself as First Nations; the public later learned he was Archibald Belaney, born in England. Karsh admitted he had been taken in like everyone else, which makes this early portrait a record of a carefully built identity.