Winston Churchill

Karsh, Yousuf, 1908-2002 · 1941

As a private citizen I approached Winston Churchill in 1941 with awe. He was more that a Great Man of the twentieth century: he was even more than an institution. He has become, and always will remains, a gigantic passage in human history. But as a photographer I had a job to be done and it had to be done far too fast. ~ Mr. Churchill, as he was then, had been addressing the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa on December 30; he was in no mood for portraiture and two minutes were all he would allow me as he passed from the House of Commons Chamber to an ante-room - two niggardly minutes in which I must try to put on film a man who had already written and inspired a library of books, baffled all his biographers, filled the world with his fame, and me, on this occasion, with dread. ~ He marched in scowling and regarded my camera as he might regard the German enemy. His expression suited me perfectly, if I could capture it, but the cigar thrust between his teeth seemed somehow incompatible with such a solemn, formal occasion. Instinctively, I removed the cigar. At this time the Churchillian scowl deepened, the head was thrust forward belligerently, and the hand placed on the hip in an attitude of anger. So he stands in my portrait in what always seemed to me the image of England in those years, defiant and unconquerable. ~ With a swift change of mood, he came towards me when I was finished, extending his hand and saying, 'Well, you can certainly make a roaring lion stand still to be photographed' (Karsh, 1976).