Francois Mauriac

Karsh, Yousuf, 1908-2002 · 1949

It is quite absurd - I speak with strong conviction and somewhat bitter experience - to say that the French are a decadent race How can they be when so many of them climb six flights of stairs several times a day? Indeed, most of the great Frenchmen I have photographed have chosen to live on the sixth floor, or higher, without an elevator - François Mauriac, the eminent and devout Catholic writer, for example... I and my assistant were compelled to ascend, with all our heavy photographic equipment, in several breath-taking climbs. And then, after all the wires had been connected, there was no electricity! So we waited hopefully on that day in 1949, for the Paris power to be turned on again... We had been talking for a long time but still there was no electricity and I was on the point of despair. Yet after climbing those endless stairs with all my photographic paraphernalia I did not intend to leave empty-handed and undergo the same ordeal a second time. ~ On the off chance of success, I placed my subject before an open French door and against the greyest of Parisian skies. My assistant removed a sheet from the bed and held it up as a reflector. The resulting profile portrait, I feel, conveys François Mauriac's Gallic charm and perhaps something of his dark despondency about human affairs (Karsh, 1976).