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Globe and Mail, Canada
Acclaimed writers were made for each author
TOM HAWTHORN
Special to The Globe and Mail
September 21, 2007
VICTORIA -- Each morning, the couple walk along the seashore of their
island home before settling into the studio in which they work.
The telephone is unplugged and e-mails go unheeded.
At 7:30 a.m., each begins the day's labours, which will amount to
several hours of writing before breaking for a late lunch.
Writing, that most solitary of professions, is not supposed to be a
group effort. The writers hardly exchange a word after sitting at
their desks, which are arranged so one cannot see the other.
"There's an invisible line down the middle which neither of us crosses
all morning," she said.
"It's surprisingly amicable," he insists.
At one end is Peter Clarke, 65, a retired Cambridge professor and
author of several distinguished volumes of modern British history. At
the other is Maria Tippett, 62, also a retired academic and winner of
a Governor-General's Award.
Over the years, the two have produced a groaning shelf of works. This
fall, after many months of effort in the studio, each is releasing a
new title. Dr. Clarke weighs in with The Last Thousand Days of the
British Empire (Penguin), a hefty effort that gives each of those days
about a half-page. Dr. Tippett's latest is Portrait in Light and
Shadow: The Life of Yousuf Karsh (House of Anansi), a substantial
examination of the great photographic portraitist.
The works are unrelated, save for one iconic image. The first
illustration in Dr. Clarke's book is of its central character, Winston
Churchill. The 1941 portrait by Mr. Karsh, undoubtedly the most famous
and reproduced image of his sterling career, is so familiar today as
to make it difficult to appreciate how striking it was on its release.
Wearing a suit, vest and bow tie, the British prime minister is shown
with left hand pushing back his coat to rest on his lower back. One
eye is half hidden by shadow, his lower lip slightly curled, his
expression one of steely determination.
The photographer famously captured this look after snatching one of
the wartime leader's beloved cigars from his puss.
"Indeed, he did that," Dr. Tippett said of Mr. Karsh. "He didn't want
to take another damned cigar portrait."
Mr. Churchill was commonly portrayed as a smiling leader who enjoyed
his cigar, she said, a counterpoint to the frowning images of Hitler
and Mussolini. After Mr. Karsh's portrait, Mr. Churchill was no longer
a "Toby Jug prime minister." The Ottawa photographer provided an image
to match the force of the man's rhetoric.
The photographer, an Armenian refugee who came to Canada at age 15 in
1924, was first approached by Dr. Tippett about a biography a decade
ago. She had long been impressed by his work, his role as an
ambassador for his adopted land, and his overreaching success as an
immigrant. ("Karsh is like a Jag, or a Burberry coat," she said. "He
never went out of fashion.") He rejected her overture, explaining he
had written an autobiography in the early 1960s and had nothing more
to add.
Instead, she spent the next several years on what would be a
controversial book examining the life and career of the West Coast
artist Bill Reid. She had earlier won a Governor-General's Award for
her biography of Emily Carr, the eccentric Victoria artist.
After Mr. Karsh died in 2002, she approached the estate about access
to the photographer's papers. Her proposal was accepted. Much to her
delight, she learned her subject was a packrat. His material occupied
64 metres of shelf space - imagine file boxes lined up two-thirds the
length of a football field filled with correspondence and financial
papers. (Long after the debut of office computers, Mr. Karsh insisted
on personally writing cheques for his studio.) She also pored over
thousands of prints and negatives.
"I didn't find any skeletons in his closet," she said, "probably
because there weren't any."
Renowned as a portraitist, Mr. Karsh also accepted corporate
commissions and journalistic assignments, photographing labourers in a
mill for a steel company, and workers on the assembly line for Ford.
Maclean's magazine sent him across country to capture life in the
cities. In Vancouver, his subjects were Sikhs and the gritty
dockyards. In Toronto, he haunted a meatpacking plant and photographed
a child in an iron-lung. The images were stunning and controversial,
as residents of the cities made known their preference for the clichéd
images provided by tourism bureaus.
Dr. Clarke's book reproduces two other Karsh portraits. Clement Attlee
is shown clutching a San Francisco newspaper. Harry Truman adjusts
round-rimmed spectacles in an unfamiliar image. It is Mr. Karsh's
best-known subject who dominates the author's look at the post-war
dismantling of the British Empire, particularly the partition of
Palestine and India 60 years ago.
"Almost every time I write about Churchill I go in thinking I'm going
to take this man down a peg or two," Dr. Clarke said. "In the end, I
find the things that irritate me are about the Churchill myth and the
over-loyal subscribers to it.
"I always give the devil his due. This isn't a book that knocks
Churchill. It's a book that shows you a human and fallible Churchill."
The history has been well-received in his native England, where the
reviewer for The Times of London offered the retired professor high
praise - "he doesn't allow academic scruples to inhibit his talent for
storytelling."
On his resignation from Cambridge University in 2004, Dr. Clarke was
master of Trinity Hall, a college that lists masters to its founding
in 1350, more than a century before Europeans discovered the continent
on which he now makes his home.
His account of the sun setting on the British Empire marks his new
vocation as a writer living in Canada. While the couple maintains a
cottage near Cambridge, they now make their permanent home on South
Pender Island.
They met at London University, where Dr. Tippett, born in Victoria,
had gone to complete her doctorate. After many years of friendship,
and following a divorce for each, the couple married in Vancouver in
1991. She became a senior research fellow at Cambridge. Three years
ago, they retired from teaching to devote themselves to writing. The
result is competing titles on the fall lists.
For those keeping score at home, the wife maintains the lead on her
husband, 11 titles to eight.
Last night, the authorial tag-team is scheduled to be in Victoria for
an invitation-only celebration of the publication of their latest
books.
Dr. Tippett has but one regret about Mr. Karsh, who has occupied her
mornings for so many years.
"I wish he'd taken my portrait," she said. "I think everyone does."
Acclaimed writers were made for each author
TOM HAWTHORN
Special to The Globe and Mail
September 21, 2007
VICTORIA -- Each morning, the couple walk along the seashore of their
island home before settling into the studio in which they work.
The telephone is unplugged and e-mails go unheeded.
At 7:30 a.m., each begins the day's labours, which will amount to
several hours of writing before breaking for a late lunch.
Writing, that most solitary of professions, is not supposed to be a
group effort. The writers hardly exchange a word after sitting at
their desks, which are arranged so one cannot see the other.
"There's an invisible line down the middle which neither of us crosses
all morning," she said.
"It's surprisingly amicable," he insists.
At one end is Peter Clarke, 65, a retired Cambridge professor and
author of several distinguished volumes of modern British history. At
the other is Maria Tippett, 62, also a retired academic and winner of
a Governor-General's Award.
Over the years, the two have produced a groaning shelf of works. This
fall, after many months of effort in the studio, each is releasing a
new title. Dr. Clarke weighs in with The Last Thousand Days of the
British Empire (Penguin), a hefty effort that gives each of those days
about a half-page. Dr. Tippett's latest is Portrait in Light and
Shadow: The Life of Yousuf Karsh (House of Anansi), a substantial
examination of the great photographic portraitist.
The works are unrelated, save for one iconic image. The first
illustration in Dr. Clarke's book is of its central character, Winston
Churchill. The 1941 portrait by Mr. Karsh, undoubtedly the most famous
and reproduced image of his sterling career, is so familiar today as
to make it difficult to appreciate how striking it was on its release.
Wearing a suit, vest and bow tie, the British prime minister is shown
with left hand pushing back his coat to rest on his lower back. One
eye is half hidden by shadow, his lower lip slightly curled, his
expression one of steely determination.
The photographer famously captured this look after snatching one of
the wartime leader's beloved cigars from his puss.
"Indeed, he did that," Dr. Tippett said of Mr. Karsh. "He didn't want
to take another damned cigar portrait."
Mr. Churchill was commonly portrayed as a smiling leader who enjoyed
his cigar, she said, a counterpoint to the frowning images of Hitler
and Mussolini. After Mr. Karsh's portrait, Mr. Churchill was no longer
a "Toby Jug prime minister." The Ottawa photographer provided an image
to match the force of the man's rhetoric.
The photographer, an Armenian refugee who came to Canada at age 15 in
1924, was first approached by Dr. Tippett about a biography a decade
ago. She had long been impressed by his work, his role as an
ambassador for his adopted land, and his overreaching success as an
immigrant. ("Karsh is like a Jag, or a Burberry coat," she said. "He
never went out of fashion.") He rejected her overture, explaining he
had written an autobiography in the early 1960s and had nothing more
to add.
Instead, she spent the next several years on what would be a
controversial book examining the life and career of the West Coast
artist Bill Reid. She had earlier won a Governor-General's Award for
her biography of Emily Carr, the eccentric Victoria artist.
After Mr. Karsh died in 2002, she approached the estate about access
to the photographer's papers. Her proposal was accepted. Much to her
delight, she learned her subject was a packrat. His material occupied
64 metres of shelf space - imagine file boxes lined up two-thirds the
length of a football field filled with correspondence and financial
papers. (Long after the debut of office computers, Mr. Karsh insisted
on personally writing cheques for his studio.) She also pored over
thousands of prints and negatives.
"I didn't find any skeletons in his closet," she said, "probably
because there weren't any."
Renowned as a portraitist, Mr. Karsh also accepted corporate
commissions and journalistic assignments, photographing labourers in a
mill for a steel company, and workers on the assembly line for Ford.
Maclean's magazine sent him across country to capture life in the
cities. In Vancouver, his subjects were Sikhs and the gritty
dockyards. In Toronto, he haunted a meatpacking plant and photographed
a child in an iron-lung. The images were stunning and controversial,
as residents of the cities made known their preference for the clichéd
images provided by tourism bureaus.
Dr. Clarke's book reproduces two other Karsh portraits. Clement Attlee
is shown clutching a San Francisco newspaper. Harry Truman adjusts
round-rimmed spectacles in an unfamiliar image. It is Mr. Karsh's
best-known subject who dominates the author's look at the post-war
dismantling of the British Empire, particularly the partition of
Palestine and India 60 years ago.
"Almost every time I write about Churchill I go in thinking I'm going
to take this man down a peg or two," Dr. Clarke said. "In the end, I
find the things that irritate me are about the Churchill myth and the
over-loyal subscribers to it.
"I always give the devil his due. This isn't a book that knocks
Churchill. It's a book that shows you a human and fallible Churchill."
The history has been well-received in his native England, where the
reviewer for The Times of London offered the retired professor high
praise - "he doesn't allow academic scruples to inhibit his talent for
storytelling."
On his resignation from Cambridge University in 2004, Dr. Clarke was
master of Trinity Hall, a college that lists masters to its founding
in 1350, more than a century before Europeans discovered the continent
on which he now makes his home.
His account of the sun setting on the British Empire marks his new
vocation as a writer living in Canada. While the couple maintains a
cottage near Cambridge, they now make their permanent home on South
Pender Island.
They met at London University, where Dr. Tippett, born in Victoria,
had gone to complete her doctorate. After many years of friendship,
and following a divorce for each, the couple married in Vancouver in
1991. She became a senior research fellow at Cambridge. Three years
ago, they retired from teaching to devote themselves to writing. The
result is competing titles on the fall lists.
For those keeping score at home, the wife maintains the lead on her
husband, 11 titles to eight.
Last night, the authorial tag-team is scheduled to be in Victoria for
an invitation-only celebration of the publication of their latest
books.
Dr. Tippett has but one regret about Mr. Karsh, who has occupied her
mornings for so many years.
"I wish he'd taken my portrait," she said. "I think everyone does."