KARSH “Bulldog” PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPH of Winston Churchill

Description

Yousuf Karsh’s definitive portrait of a scowling, bulldog Winston Churchill (“The Roaring Lion”) was taken 30 December 1941 in an ante-room of the Ottawa House of Commons following Churchill’s address to the Canadian Parliament. As official biographer Sir Martin Gilbert wrote in his own memoir, IN SEARCH OF CHURCHILL, Churchill was, at the time, “in [a] happy mood… He had just made a successful speech [‘Some chicken… some neck’]. He had left the parliamentary chamber smiling… Karsh had hoped for something stern and warlike. To secure the picture he wanted, he went up to Churchill and plucked the cigar out of his mouth. ‘By the time I got back to my camera,’ Karsh later recalled, ‘[Churchill] looked so belligerent he could have devoured me. It was at that instant that I took the picture.'”
Karsh’s iconic image has been endlessly reproduced but originals printed by him within a few years of having snapped the picture are rare. This is one such print, in virtually mint condition. It measures 7 1/4 x 9 1/4 inches and is SIGNED floridly with a stylus pen: “Karsh of Ottawa” in the lower right corner of the image. The print is also stamped on the verso with Karsh’s copyright stamp and the pencil notation “No: R.L.” The print is inconsequentially creased in areas along the white border and bears one very faint scratch within the upper left area of the print, not affecting the Churchill image. The print is preserved in its original Karsh Studio presentation folder with the address (The Hardy Arcade, 130 Sparks Street, Ottawa) and Karsh’s logo stamped in silver on the cover. The folder shows some age-fading. The print does not.