A new large scale art banner featuring the internationally recognized portrait of Ernest Hemingway by Yousuf Karsh (1908–2002) is scheduled to be installed by Britten Studios on December 14, 2015 at 10 AM on the north side of the Snowden Building on Park Street in downtown Traverse City.
Due to the heavy rain, the installation of the Hemingway Banner has been delayed until 10 AM Tuesday Dec 15, weather permitting.
This internationally recognized work is represented in the collections of the Dennos Museum Center at Northwestern Michigan College and was a gift from Estrellita Karsh (wife of Yousuf) presented to the Dennos in association with the exhibition of a collection of portraits by Yousuf Karsh at the Dennos in 2007. The exhibited portfolio of photographs was given to the Detroit Institute of Arts in recognition of the service of former Michigan Governor James Blanchard who was appointed ambassador to Canada during the Clinton administration.
Yousuf Karsh (1908–2002) created iconic portraits of many of the 20th century’s most influential men and women. A refugee from persecution in his native Armenia, Karsh immigrated to Canada in 1925. After an apprenticeship in Boston with his uncle, a professional photographer, John H. Garo in 1928, Karsh returned to Ottawa and opened his portrait studio in 1933 intent “on photographing those men and women who leave their mark on the world.”
Introduced to stage lighting techniques through his association with the Ottawa Drama League, he experimented with artificial lighting to achieve the dramatic effects that became the hallmark of his portraiture. Believing that “the heart and mind are the true lens of the camera,” Karsh also developed a genuine rapport with his sitters and partnered with them to fashion portraits that were both revealing and respectful.
Karsh photographed Hemingway in 1957. Reflecting upon his effort to do so he states, “I expected to meet in the author a composite of the heroes of his novels. Instead, in 1957, at his home Finca Vigía, near Havana, I found a man of peculiar gentleness, the shyest man I ever photographed – a man cruelly battered by life, but seemingly invincible. He was still suffering from the effects of a plane accident that occurred during his fourth safari to Africa. I had gone the evening before to La Floridita, Hemingway’s favourite bar, to do my “homework” and sample his favorite concoction, the daiquiri. But one can be over prepared! When, at nine the next morning, Hemingway called from the kitchen, “What will you have to drink?” my reply was, I thought, letter-perfect: “Daiquiri, sir.” “Good God, Karsh,” Hemingway remonstrated, “at this hour of the day!”
The Hemingway portrait is particularly significant to have in the Dennos collections given Hemingway’s connection to northern Michigan. Hemingway was born in 1899 near Chicago and spent parts of his first 22 summers with his family on Walloon Lake near Petoskey. It is there he would find inspiration for his Nick Adams stories. During the 1920s, Hemingway lived in Paris, where he knew fellow-American expatriates Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein, and worked as a journalist before publishing short stories and then novels. A Nobel Prize winner, Ernest Hemingway was one of the great American 20th century novelists, known for works like A Farewell to Arms and The Old Man and the Sea. After a life of adventures in Africa, Spain, and Cuba, Hemingway moved to Idaho, where in 1961 he took his own life.
The Hemingway portrait joins the iconic Japanese art work from the Dennos collection, Under the Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai (Japanese, 1760–1849) also known as The Great Wave which is hung directly across the street.
“This is the third of a number of works from the museum’s collection that will be reproduced and hung with the Banner Project as part of the events related to the celebration of The Dennos’ 25th anniversary in 2016,” says Gene Jenneman, Executive Director of The Dennos, “We will be presenting a large exhibition in our galleries focused on the museum’s art collection as we enter our 25th year next summer, and this effort will begin to draw attention to The Dennos collection. Indeed this is also part of the lead up to the anticipated construction of permanent collection galleries for The Dennos in 2016, thanks to a major gift from Diana and Richard Milock.
The Traverse City Art Banner project is the brainchild of former NMC Art Department Chair Paul Welch, who along with a committee of artists and art supporters has been seeking empty walls on downtown Traverse City buildings and asking the owners of the buildings to allow them to become outdoor galleries with reproduction banners of art by regional artists; former NMC art students and imagery from the collections of the Dennos Museum Center, which is a collaborative partner with the Banner Project.
The art banners are hung for several months, during which the Committee and Dennos are working to select new images and find additional buildings to become outdoor galleries for the work.
The project is supported by private donors who provide the funds for printing and installation by Britten Studios of the reproduced art works. The Hemingway Karsh banner is supported by former Governor James and Janet Blanchard.
In addition to the Great Wave, this new installation joins the work Run Before the Wind by Madonna Walters, Calvin Boulter’s work entitled A Space Time Continuum, and the work Thunderbird Man by Aboriginal Canadian artist Norval Morrisseau from the collections of the Dennos Museum Center, that are currently hanging on buildings in downtown Traverse City.
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Background:
The Traverse City Banner Art Committee
Paul Welch, Chair, Dennos Museum Center Executive Director Gene Jenneman, Robin Stanley, Collen Paviglio, Chris Dennos Calvin Boulter, Cherie Correll, Delbert Michel, Charles Murphy, John Williams, Nancy Grist and Kris Schroeder.
The Banner Artist
Ernest Hemingway, 1957
Yousuf Karsh (Canadian, born Armenia, 1908–2002)
Gelatin silver print
13 7/16 x 10 11/16 in. (34.2 x 27.2 cm)
Gift of Estrellita Karsh
© Yousuf Karsh
Yousuf Karsh, one of the greatest portrait photographers of the twentieth century, achieved a distinct style in his theatrical lighting. Karsh photographed many of the celebrated personalities of his time—Andy Warhol, Fidel Castro, Peter Lorre, Winston Churchill, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Pablo Picasso, and Albert Einstein, among many others. One of Karsh’s most famous photographs is this portrait of Ernest Hemingway taken in 1957. Recalling Hemingway as “a man of peculiar gentleness,” Karsh displays his gift for capturing the essence of his subjects.
(Citation “Yousuf Karsh: Ernest Hemingway (1986.1098.12)”. In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1986.1098.12 (January 2014)