Like many people in Ottawaeureka dog online casino, I made a point of passing through the lounge off the lobby of the Fairmont Château Laurier to take another look at the portraits of notables that hung there.
ImageA forged copy of Yousuf Karsh’s portrait of Winston Churchill hanging at the Fairmont Château Laurier in April 2022.Credit...Ian Austen/The New York TimesThey were a mix of prominent Canadians, including Jean Paul Riopelle and Stephen Leacock, and global notables, Albert Einstein and Georgia O’Keeffe among them. And all of the luminous black-and-white photos were works by Yousuf Karsh, who both lived in the hotel and kept his studio within it.
The most famous of the portraits, a scowling Winston Churchill photographed during a visit to Ottawa during World War II, again brought attention to Mr. Karsh and his work this week. The portrait was stolen over two years ago from the lounge, but the Ottawa Police Service announced that it had been found in Italy and that an officer would soon travel to Rome to retrieve it.
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A number of details about the theft are still to come in court. But, as I wrote in the article about its recovery, the thief got around international watch lists of stolen artworks by successfully delaying the discovery, replacing the original with a low-quality inkjet print that was crudely hung. The delay of eight months or so between the theft in early 2022 and its uncovering enabled the sale of the portrait through a Sotheby’s auction in London.
While using rooms in the hotel as a base during the trucker convoy that paralyzed Ottawa for much of February 2022eureka dog online casino, I learned that Mr. Karsh’s apartment had been turned into a suite used mostly by visiting dignitaries. His studio, however, had been chopped up into rooms.