![]() ![]() Police began an investigation into the matter after an employee at the Chateau Laurier Hotel in Canada noticed an inconsistency in the frame on the photograph in comparison to the other five portraits in the room that were captured by Yousuf Karsh. The portrait known as "Roaring Lion" was taken by portraitist Yousuf Karsh after Churchill had given a speech at the Canadian parliament in 1941, The Guardian reported. ![]() “We don’t allow copies.The portrait of Sir Winston Churchill has been reportedly stolen from a hotel in Canada and replaced with a "fake" photograph. “We don’t allow reproductions,” said Fielder. No prints of Karsh’s work have been allowed since his negatives were given to Library and Archives Canada in the 1990s. I assumed it was stolen for its value,” said Fielder. I don’t know if someone, some super-fan, maybe, wanted this to hang in their living room. “Obviously, this theft was very carefully planned. The portrait, which “went viral, but in a slower form” said Fiedler, was used on the British five-pound note in 2016. It was at that instant that I took the photograph.” By the time I got back to my camera, he looked so belligerent he could have devoured me. Then I stepped toward him and, without premeditation, but ever so respectfully, I said, ‘Forgive me, sir,’ and plucked the cigar out of his mouth. I waited he continued to chomp vigorously at his cigar. “I went back to my camera and made sure that everything was all right technically. Karsh recalled Churchill lighting a fresh cigar, puffing it “with a mischievous air” and then relenting to allow a single photograph. “I timorously stepped forward and said, ‘Sir, I hope I will be fortunate enough to make a portrait worthy of this historic occasion.’ He glanced at me and demanded, ‘Why was I not told?’” The image of a scowling Churchill was an “exception”, said Fielder.Īfter watching Churchill give an “electrifying” speech to the Canadian parliament in 1941, Karsh waited in the speaker’s chambers for the chance to take a portrait of Churchill and the Canadian prime minister, Mackenzie King.īut when the two entered the room with arms linked, Churchill “growled”, Karsh later recalled. “He just had a way with people and putting them at ease,” And I think it allows people to feel that they can be themselves,” he said. And when you were with Yousuf, you knew right away he was the real thing. “For the kinds of people that he photographed, they could spot a sycophant or a phoney a mile away. Karsh, whose fled the Armenian genocide with his family and spent much of his life in Canada, was renowned for his mastery of image-making, both in the studio and when working with his subjects. He also had a studio on the sixth floor until 1992. It hosted his first-ever exhibition in 1936 and he and his wife lived on the third floor for nearly two decades. The remaining five have recently been removed until they can be properly secured, the hotel said.įielder, who worked closely with Karsh, says the photographer had a long relationship with the hotel. The hotel was gifted 15 original works by Karsh, six of which were in the lounge. It is unclear when the print of Churchill, which has hung in the hotel for 24 years, first went missing. “We are deeply saddened by this brazen act,” the Fairmont hotel said in a statement, adding that it was proud of its “stunning” collection of Karsh prints. Once the theft was discovered, the Ottawa police were notified and began investigating. So it took me just one second to know that someone had tried to copy it,” Fielder told the Guardian. The hotel contacted Jerry Fielder, who oversees Karsh’s estate, to assess the signature on the suspect print. The frame on the photograph didn’t match the other five portraits in the room, all of which had been taken by the acclaimed Canadian-Armenian portraitist Yousuf Karsh, whose subjects included Martin Luther King Jr, Albert Einstein, Ernest Hemingway and Queen Elizabeth II. ![]()
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