Maxie Dunnam tells an interesting story about the great Canadian photographer, Yousef Karsh. According to Dunnam, Karsh only took one portrait of a person’s back, that of Pablo Casals in a French abbey in 1954. Karsh writes that as he was setting up his equipment, Casals began playing by on his cello. Karsh was so enthralled by the music that he almost forgot why he was there. He took his portrait of Casals with the little baldheaded man bent over his cello, frozen in time against the plain stone wall of the chapel. Karsh said that he took it that way to capture the loneliness of the truly great artists and the loneliness of exile.
Years later, when the portrait was on exhibition in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, another old, baldheaded man came day after day and stood for long moments at a time in front of the portrait. The curator of the museum noticed him and, when his curiosity got the best of him, went over, tapped him on the shoulder and asked why he stayed so long before the picture. The old man, with obvious irritation, turned on the curator and said, “Hush young man! Can’t you see I’m listening to the music!”
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