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A 'SPECTACULAR' GIFT FOR CHEO; KARSH PORTRAITS DONATED TO THE HOSPITAL ARE NOW BRINGING LIFE TO A LONELY HALLWAY
Ottawa Citizen
July 11, 2012 Wednesday
Canada
by: Karen Chen, Ottawa Citizen
Famed photographer Yousuf Karsh had always wanted to be a physician,
said his widow Estrellita Karsh, 82.
Although the admired artist never pursued his first love, his work
found a place in the halls of the Children's Hospital of Eastern
Ontario on Tuesday after his widow donated 30 more of his intimate
portraits to the existing collection, making CHEO the home of the
largest permanent Karsh photography collection in the world.
Walt Disney's wrinkled smile twinkles from a portrait hung above a
label at a child's height, where it's alongside luminaries including
Sir Winston Churchill, Muhammad Ali, Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso
and Helen Keller. The 50 portraits bring life to the previously
lonely white walls of a hallway near The Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh
Emergency Department, where thousands of staff, young patients and
their families and visitors can catch the eye of Andy Warhol, who
playfully holds a paintbrush to his face.
"It really is Extreme Make-over: Hospital Edition," said Alex Munter,
president and chief executive of CHEO. "Mrs. Karsh has taken a long,
drab hallway and transformed it into a spectacular, beautiful space."
Karsh said medicine and art have always been "sitting together in
the same couch," a connection her husband always understood.
"You're meeting a stranger and you expect them to help you, you
take your clothes off and you let them to see your wart, it's
a collaboration of trust," Karsh said, alluding to the comfort
found in a doctor-patient relationship and a photographer-subject
relation-ship. Karsh was dressed in a floral white blazer with her
hair perfectly fixed.
As media photographers rushed to take her picture, she was unflustered,
letting them take shot after shot and adjust the flash.
"I'm used to photographers," she said playfully.
The Karshes have long been donors to CHEO, and will always call
Ottawa home. Yousuf Karsh never had much of a childhood, growing up
in politically torn Armenia.
Donations have gone toward training, hospital labs, equipment and
scholarships. Estrellita Karsh said she hopes the photographs will
add warmth to the hospital, so patients and their families can think
about something other than illness and injury.
Pelle Stenbring, a CHEO physiotherapist who uses the hallway to help
his patients get on their feet and move, said the portraits helped
create a bit of normal in the abnormal.
"(Inside the hospital) it's black and white - there is no grey, you're
sick or you're not. This is a little spot where there is no hospital,"
Stenbring said.
His favourite part is showing the young patients Walt Disney's face,
saying they all recognize Mickey Mouse, but few know what the man
behind the mouse looks like.
"If the things around you bring you comfort, it registers," Estrellita
Karsh said.
"That is why it is so important to have beauty around us."
Ottawa Citizen
July 11, 2012 Wednesday
Canada
by: Karen Chen, Ottawa Citizen
Famed photographer Yousuf Karsh had always wanted to be a physician,
said his widow Estrellita Karsh, 82.
Although the admired artist never pursued his first love, his work
found a place in the halls of the Children's Hospital of Eastern
Ontario on Tuesday after his widow donated 30 more of his intimate
portraits to the existing collection, making CHEO the home of the
largest permanent Karsh photography collection in the world.
Walt Disney's wrinkled smile twinkles from a portrait hung above a
label at a child's height, where it's alongside luminaries including
Sir Winston Churchill, Muhammad Ali, Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso
and Helen Keller. The 50 portraits bring life to the previously
lonely white walls of a hallway near The Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh
Emergency Department, where thousands of staff, young patients and
their families and visitors can catch the eye of Andy Warhol, who
playfully holds a paintbrush to his face.
"It really is Extreme Make-over: Hospital Edition," said Alex Munter,
president and chief executive of CHEO. "Mrs. Karsh has taken a long,
drab hallway and transformed it into a spectacular, beautiful space."
Karsh said medicine and art have always been "sitting together in
the same couch," a connection her husband always understood.
"You're meeting a stranger and you expect them to help you, you
take your clothes off and you let them to see your wart, it's
a collaboration of trust," Karsh said, alluding to the comfort
found in a doctor-patient relationship and a photographer-subject
relation-ship. Karsh was dressed in a floral white blazer with her
hair perfectly fixed.
As media photographers rushed to take her picture, she was unflustered,
letting them take shot after shot and adjust the flash.
"I'm used to photographers," she said playfully.
The Karshes have long been donors to CHEO, and will always call
Ottawa home. Yousuf Karsh never had much of a childhood, growing up
in politically torn Armenia.
Donations have gone toward training, hospital labs, equipment and
scholarships. Estrellita Karsh said she hopes the photographs will
add warmth to the hospital, so patients and their families can think
about something other than illness and injury.
Pelle Stenbring, a CHEO physiotherapist who uses the hallway to help
his patients get on their feet and move, said the portraits helped
create a bit of normal in the abnormal.
"(Inside the hospital) it's black and white - there is no grey, you're
sick or you're not. This is a little spot where there is no hospital,"
Stenbring said.
His favourite part is showing the young patients Walt Disney's face,
saying they all recognize Mickey Mouse, but few know what the man
behind the mouse looks like.
"If the things around you bring you comfort, it registers," Estrellita
Karsh said.
"That is why it is so important to have beauty around us."