Churchill Portrait Stolen
This week we’ve got a homegrown Canadian crime for you. One of the most famous photographs of Winston Churchill, shot by a Canadian photographer was stolen from an iconic hotel in Ottawa. But how? And where is it now?
The Background
Yousuf Karsh was born on December 23, 1908 in present day Turkey. He grew up during the Armenian genocide and his family fled to a refugee camp in Syria in 1922 after a month of travelling with a Kurdish caravan. From there Karsh was sent to Canada by his family and he arrived alone by boat in Halifax, Nova Scotia on December 21, 1923. He was about to turn 14 years old. He immediately moved to Sherbrooke, Quebec to live with his uncle, a portrait photographer. As soon as he arrived he started working for and apprenticing with his uncle who gave him a Box Brownie camera to start out with.
From 1928-1931 Karsh apprenticed in Boston, Massachusetts with John H. Garo an Armenian-American photographer who had made a name for himself photographing Boston celebrities. Karsh eventually settled in Ottawa and opened his first studio in 1932. He achieved his first success by attracting the attention of Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King who helped Karsh arrange photo sessions with visiting dignitaries and heads of state. He almost exclusively photographed famous people and by the time he retired in 1992 more than 20 of his photos had appeared on the cover of Life Magazine.
Now to talk about the photograph in question. One of the most famous shots of Winston Churchill of all time, titled The Roaring Lion. According to The Economist it’s the most reproduced portrait in the history of photography. It has a pretty interesting backstory but I’ll let Karsh himself tell it.
“In 1941, Churchill visited first Washington and then Ottawa. The Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, invited me to be present. After the electrifying speech, I waited in the Speaker’s Chamber where, the evening before, I had set up my lights and camera. The Prime Minister, arm-in-arm with Churchill and followed by his entourage, started to lead him into the room. I switched on my floodlights; a surprised Churchill growled, ‘What’s this, what’s this?’ No one had the courage to explain. I timorously stepped forward and said, ‘Sir, I hope I will be fortunate enough to make a portrait worthy of this historic occasion.’ He glanced at me and demanded, ‘Why was I not told?’ When his entourage began to laugh, this hardly helped matters for me. Churchill lit a fresh cigar, puffed at it with a mischievous air, and then magnanimously relented. ‘You may take one.’ Churchill’s cigar was ever present. I held out an ashtray, but he would not dispose of it. I went back to my camera and made sure that everything was all right technically. I waited; he continued to chomp vigorously at his cigar. I waited. Then I stepped toward him and, without premeditation, but ever so respectfully, I said, ‘Forgive me, sir,’ and plucked the cigar out of his mouth. By the time I got back to my camera, he looked so belligerent he could have devoured me. It was at that instant that I took the photograph” (Karsh, 1941).
As you can see this is an important piece of Canadian, and world, history and an extremely iconic and valuable photograph.
The Caper
So, since 1998 this photograph has been hanging at the Chateau Laurier hotel in Ottawa along with the other 14 images in their Karsh collection (all of which were gifted to the hotel). In August of 2022 a worker noticed that the frame of The Roaring Lion didn’t match the others hanging in the room, also by Karsh, of Queen Elizabeth II, Albert Einstein, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Earnest Hemingway. When the hotel employee investigated further they found that the photo itself looked a little off so they contacted Jerry Fielder (who manages Karsh’s estate) and after only a few seconds he told them the signature was fake and someone must have swapped out the photograph.
The hotel was stunned. They had no idea when this could have taken place, by whom, and how. All Karsh images had been securely fastened to the wall using a security mechanism and a safety lock which bolts them into place. The hotel’s general manager said it would have taken special tools to remove the frame from the wall.
Of course as soon as the theft was noticed the police were called and they started investigating. But it’s unfortunate that no one knows exactly when the photo went missing. Because this is an ongoing investigation the police haven’t said a lot publicly about their progress but now that we’re almost a year on from the crime what do people think?
The Theories
The CBC spoke to retired FBI senior art theft investigator Robert Whittman and he said he immediately thought it was an inside job. Once it was discovered that the photo had been swapped for a fake, hotel guests began sending in photos they had taken of the image so investigators could try and identify when it may have been swapped. The last known photograph taken of the real Karsh was on December 25, 2021 and the earliest photo of the fake was taken on January 6, 2022. So that narrows it down to a window of 12 days. Another thing to note was that Ottawa was in COVID lockdown at that time so the hotel had very few guests, they were also operating with reduced staff plus the bar and restaurant were closed due to an outbreak of COVID within the hotel itself. Whitman refers to this set of circumstances as an opportunity.
“‘It would have to be someone who had access, who was supposed to be there," he said. "[Someone] who knew what tools were needed and actually had the time to do it, and was not suspicious to anyone in the hotel to begin with.’ In other words, he explained, ‘it wouldn't be somebody walking in off the street’” (Hunter, 2023). “So usually when a situation like this occurs, it's not a shoplifting, it's not just a burglary; it's someone from the inside who had access, who knew what they were looking for, knew what the security measures were that were protecting the piece and that (they) were able to defeat those measures because they had inside information” (Woods, 2022). Wittman went on to say that he expects that the police’s investigation will include forensic analysis for any fingerprints, reviewing the hotel’s security footage as well as footage from nearby locations, seeing who had access to the photograph, and what security measures were holding it to the wall.
Jerry Fielder, the manager of Karsh’s estate, says, “obviously, this theft was very carefully planned. I don’t know if someone, some super-fan, maybe, wanted this to hang in their living room. But it’s also very valuable. I assumed it was stolen for its value” (Cecco, 2022). It’s also worth noting that no prints or copies of Karsh’s work have been allowed since all his negatives and film were given to Library and Archives Canada in the 1990s. So even if this hadn’t been an extremely iconic photograph it would be rare to have a copy.
Art experts estimate that this photo could fetch over $100,000 at auction and that the thief likely stole it to sell it for quick cash. Christopher Marinello, the founder and CEO of Art Recovery International and one of the world’s top experts in recovering stolen art, said, “unfortunately there is a market for this type of thing. They will try various auction houses and hoping to find one that does not do sufficient due diligence. And unfortunately, that’s all over” (Woods, 2022).
FBI agent Whittman says that the recovery rate for high-value artwork is as high as 95%. “Ultimately, unless it's destroyed, it's still in the marketplace. At some point, it comes back to market, it's advertised and then we recover it” (Woods, 2022). So here’s hoping someone sees it and understands the significance and helps bring the photo home to the hotel where its spot is still waiting, bare and unrepaired, for it to return.
Works Cited
Cecco, Leyland. “Famed Churchill Portrait Stolen from Hotel and Replaced with Fake”. The Guardian. 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/23/winston-churchill-portrait-stolen-canadian-hotel-yousuf-karsh.
Hunter, Paul. “1 Year Later, Iconic Churchill Photo Stolen from Ottawa Hotel Still Eludes Police”. CBC News. 2023. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/winston-churchill-karsh-photo-stolen-timeline-1.6714114.
“Winston Churchill”. Yousuf Karsh. 1941. https://karsh.org/photographs/winston-churchill/
Woods, Michael. “Churchill Portrait Stolen from Chateau Laurier 8 Months Ago”. CTV News. 2022. https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/churchill-portrait-stolen-from-chateau-laurier-8-months-ago-hotel-officials-1.6038897
Woods, Michael. “Churchill Portrait Stolen from Chateau Laurier May have Already been Sold”. CTV News. https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/churchill-portrait-stolen-from-chateau-laurier-may-have-already-been-sold-1.6040423