Yousuf Karsh's Most Famous Portraits

Yousuf Karsh opened a portrait studio in Ottawa in 1932 and spent the next six decades photographing the people who shaped the twentieth century. This gallery gathers his best-known sittings, one photograph per sitter, in the order they were taken, from Grey Owl in 1936 to Nelson Mandela in 1990. A portrait earned its place by becoming the picture many people still see when they hear the sitter's name, or by carrying a story from the sitting that Karsh told for the rest of his life. Look for his signature lighting: faces and hands picked out of deep shadow.