Here's looking at you: Yousuf Karsh's celebrity portraits – in pictures

Armenian-Canadian Karsh escaped genocide to move to Quebec and become one of the most celebrated portrait photographers of the 20th century

Main image: George Bernard Shaw by Yousuf Karsh Photograph: Yousuf Karsh/Camera Press

  • Humphrey Bogart, 1946

    Photographer Yousuf Karsh captured portraits of everyone from Albert Einstein to Martin Luther King during his career – as well as some of the century’s greatest artists, musicians and actors. An exhibition of his work is at Beetles + Huxley, London, until 22 October
    Humphrey Bogart, 1946

  • Grace Kelly, 1956

    In 1921, Karsh’s family escaped the Armenian genocide into Syria, with a single donkey their only real possession
    Grace Kelly, 1956

  • George Bernard Shaw, 1943

    Karsh’s uncle, who lived in Quebec, wrote to the family to ask for help in his photography studio – the 16-year-old Yousuf embarked on a 29-day trip to get there
    George Bernard Shaw, 1943

  • Audrey Hepburn, 1956

    His apprenticeship led to Karsh training in portrait photography in Boston, studying old masters painters and their approach to light and perspective
    Audrey Hepburn, 1956

  • Ernest Hemingway, 1957

    He moved to Ottawa, and began photographing visiting dignitaries. His breakthrough came with a portrait of Winston Churchill that ended up on the cover of Time magazine
    Ernest Hemingway, 1957

  • Martha Graham, 1948

    Another photograph from the same session with Churchill graces the UK’s new £5 banknote
    Martha Graham, 1948

  • Georgia O’Keefe, 1972

    Karsh would go on to photograph the most famous people in the world, and among other accolades, has a crater on Mercury named after him
    Georgia O’Keefe, 1972
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