The British photographer Antony F. Kersting (1916–2008) worked far and wide across the globe. Kersting was Britain’s leading photographer of architecture, and during the 1940s and 50s he spent years in the Middle East documenting the people and their buildings. He also shot Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia and Syria’s Palmyra, religious sites and street scenes in Nepal, and made portraits of sprawling estates in his home country, including the fabled Castle Howard and Duncombe Park. Kersting’s photographic output numbers over 42,000 prints and negatives. Among these are images of the Yazidi community in Kurdistan, taken between 1944 and 1946. These photographs, as well as stills of Erbil, Iraq, one of the oldest continuous communities on earth, are on view in this exhibition. The show marks the Courtauld Gallery’s reopening. —E.C.

Kurdistan in the 1940s
Courtauld Gallery
Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN, United Kingdom
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