Yousuf Karsh's Portraits in Boston

Pablo Picasso, 1954
"The maestro's villa was a photographer's nightmare, with his boisterous children bicycling through vast rooms already crowded with canvases. I eagerly accepted Picasso's alternate suggestion to meet later in Vallauris at his ceramic gallery. "He will never be here," the gallery owner commented, when my assistant and two hundred pounds of equipment arrived. "He says the same thing to every photographer." To everyone's amazement, the "old lion" not only kept his photographic appointment with me but was prompt and wore a new shirt. He could partially view himself in my large format lens and intuitively moved to complete the composition."

• Yousuf Karsh at the MFA in Boston: September 23, 2008 thru January 19, 2009