Quest for Beauty

Quest for Beauty – The Photographic Journey of Malak of Ottawa, is the authorized biography of one of Canada’s great photographic artists, one whose relentless, impassioned search for colour, beauty and joy illustrated to the world the magnificence of Canada and its capital City of Ottawa.

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Quest for Beauty – The Photographic Journey of Malak of Ottawa, is the authorized biography of the prolific, passionate and tireless Canadian photographer Malak Karsh. Malak’s quest takes us from the Karsh family’s exodus from Turkey wrought by the 1915 Armenian genocide, to Canada and a storied life filled with colour, beauty and joy.


The brother of Yousuf Karsh, arguably the world’s most renowned portrait photographer, Malak of Ottawa spent a lifetime capturing images of Canadians, Canadian industry, Canadian landscapes, seascapes, cities, icons, and daily life, through millions of images.


Key to his success was his relentless pursuit of perfection – every single photograph was the result of a painstaking event, defiant of the elements, and often placing himself at physical risk in order to achieve his artistic objectives.


Central to Quest for Beauty is the Canadian capital City of Ottawa, Canada’s distinctive gothic-revival Parliament Buildings, his decades-long association with the Dutch and his obsession with tulips – an untold volume of floral photography that in part redefined Canada’s capital city.