Erwin Blumenfeld (26 January 1897 – 4 July 1969) was an American

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who uses a camera to make photographs. Duties and types of photograp ...

of German origin. He was born in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, and in 1941 emigrated to the United States, where he soon became a successful and well-paid

fashion photographer Fashion photography is a genre of photography that portrays clothing and other fashion items. This sometimes includes haute couture garments. It typically consists of a fashion photographer taking pictures of a dressed model in a photographic stu ...

, working as a free-lancer for ''

Harper's Bazaar ''Harper's Bazaar'' (stylized as ''Harper's BAZAAR'') is an American monthly women's fashion magazine. Bazaar has been published in New York City since November 2, 1867, originally as a weekly publication entitled ''Harper's Bazar''."Corporat ...

'', ''

Life Life, also known as biota, refers to matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, Structure#Biological, organisation, met ...

'' and American ''

Vogue Vogue may refer to: Business * ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine ** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine ** '' Vogue Adria'', a fashion magazine for former Yugoslav countries ** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine ** ' ...

''. His personal photographic work showed the influence of

Dadaism Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...

and

Surrealism Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

; his two main areas of interest were death and women. He was expert in laboratory work, and experimented with

photographic techniques Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed in many ...

such as

distortion In signal processing, distortion is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic) of a signal. In communications and electronics it means the alteration of the waveform of an information-bearing signal, such as an audio signal ...

multiple exposure In photography and cinematography, a multiple exposure is the superimposition of two or more exposures to create a single image, and double exposure has a corresponding meaning in respect of two images. The exposure values may or may not be ide ...

, photo-montage and

solarisation The Sabatier effect, also known as pseudo-solarization (or pseudo-solarisation) and erroneously referred to as the Sabattier effect, is a phenomenon in photography in which the image recorded on a Negative (photography), negative or on a photo ...

History

Blumenfeld was born in Berlin on 26 January 1897, to

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

ic Jewish

free-thinker Freethought (sometimes spelled free thought) is an unorthodox attitude or belief. A freethinker holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and should instead be reached by other meth ...

parents. As a young man he worked in the clothes trade and wrote poetry. In 1918 he went to Amsterdam, where he came into contact with

Paul Citroen Roelof Paul Citroen (15 December 1896 – 13 March 1983) was a German-born Dutch artist, art educator and co-founder of the New Art Academy in Amsterdam. Among his best-known works are the photo-montage Metropolis and the 1949 Dutch postage st ...

and

Georg Grosz George Grosz (; ; born Georg Ehrenfried Groß; July 26, 1893 – July 6, 1959) was a German artist known especially for his caricature, caricatural drawings and paintings of Berlin life in the 1920s. He was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada ...

. In 1933 he made a

photomontage Photomontage is the process and the result of making a composite photograph by cutting, gluing, rearranging and overlapping two or more photographs into a new image. Sometimes the resulting composite image is photographed so that the final imag ...

showing

Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

as a skull with a

swastika The swastika (卐 or 卍, ) is a symbol used in various Eurasian religions and cultures, as well as a few Indigenous peoples of Africa, African and Indigenous peoples of the Americas, American cultures. In the Western world, it is widely rec ...

on its forehead; this image was later used in Allied

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...

material in 1943. He married Lena Citroen, with whom he had three children, in 1921. In 1922 he started a

leather goods Leather is a strong, flexible and durable material obtained from the tanning, or chemical treatment, of animal skins and hides to prevent decay. The most common leathers come from cattle, sheep, goats, equine animals, buffalo, pigs and hogs, ...

shop, which failed in 1935. He moved to Paris, where in 1936 he set up as a photographer and did free-lance work for French ''

''. After the outbreak of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

he was placed as an "undesirable alien" in several French

internment camps Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simp ...

, but in 1941, he was able to emigrate to the United States. There he soon became a successful and well-paid

, and worked as a free-lancer for ''

'', ''

'' and American ''

''. Blumenfeld died in Rome on 4 July 1969.

Publications

Blumenfeld started working on ''Blumenfeld: Meine 100 Besten Fotos'' in 1955; it was eventually published in 1979; an English translation, ''Blumenfeld: My One Hundred Best Photos'', was published in New York in 1981. Another autobiographical work was published in German by in 1998, and in English as ''Eye to I: The Autobiography of a Photographer'' by

Thames and Hudson Thames & Hudson (sometimes T&H for brevity) is a publisher of illustrated books in all visually creative categories: art, architecture, design, photography, fashion, film, and the performing arts. It also publishes books on archaeology, history, ...

in 1999.

Retrospective exhibitions

* 1979:

Musée Rath The Musée Rath is an art museum in Geneva, used exclusively for temporary exhibitions. Its building is the oldest purpose-built art museum in Switzerland, and the original home of Musée d'Art et d'Histoire (Geneva), Geneva's Musée d'Art et d'H ...

, Geneva, Switzerland * 1981:

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

, Paris * 1996:

Barbican Centre The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London, England, and the largest of its kind in Europe. The centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings a ...

, London, travelling exhibition, also shown in Zurich, Lausanne, Berlin, Paris and Amsterdam * 2006: ''Erwin Blumenfeld, his Dutch years'', Fotomuseum Den Haag, The Hague, The Netherlands * 2009: ''Erwin Blumenfeld Dada Montagen 1916-1933'',

Berlinische Galerie The Berlinische Galerie is a museum of modern art, photography and architecture in Berlin. It is located in Kreuzberg, on Alte Jakobstraße, not far from the Jewish Museum. The Berlinische Galerie collects art created in Berlin since 1870 with a ...

, Berlin * 2012: ''Studio Blumenfeld, New York, 1941-1960'', Nicéphore-Niépce Museum, Châlon-sur-Saône, France * 2013: "Erwin Blumenfeld", Jeu de Paume Gallery, Paris, October 2013 to January 2014. * 2022: "Erwin Blumenfeld: Fashion is a Game",

La Samaritaine La Samaritaine (French pronunciation: a samaʁitɛn is a large department store in the first arrondissement of Paris; the nearest metro station is Pont-Neuf. Founded in 1870 by Ernest Cognacq, it is now owned by the luxury goods conglomerate ...

department store, Paris, February to May, 2022 * 2022: "Les Tribulations d’Erwin Blumenfeld, 1930-1950", musée d'Art et d'Histoire du judaïsme, Paris, October 2022 to March 2023 From 13 October 2022 to 5 March 2023, the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme in Paris announced an exhibition titled "The Trials and Tribulations of Erwin Blumenfeld, 1930-1950". Presenting 180 photographs and an accompanying catalog, this exhibition spans what the curators considered Blumenfeld’s most famous and most experimental period. Further, it presents information on his artistic vision and his life during the Second World War. Apart from his well-known fashion photography, previously unpublished photo stories were included: One on a

gypsy {{Infobox ethnic group , group = Romani people , image = , image_caption = , flag = Roma flag.svg , flag_caption = Romani flag created in 1933 and accepted at the 1971 World Romani Congress , po ...

family at

Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (, alternatively with the definite article Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, "(the) Saint Marys of the Sea", locally Les Saintes, ; Provençal: ''Lei Santei Marias de la Mar'' or ''Li Sànti Marìo de la Mar'' ), is the c ...

Provence Provence is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which stretches from the left bank of the lower Rhône to the west to the France–Italy border, Italian border to the east; it is bordered by the Mediterrane ...

, France, and the other on ceremonial dances of Native Americans in

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

References

External links

Webpage by the Estate of Erwin Blumenfeld

Excerpts of the catalog for the exhibition "The Trials and Tribulations of Erwin Blumenfeld,1930-1950"
(in French) {{DEFAULTSORT:Blumenfeld, Erwin American fashion photographers 1897 births 1969 deaths German photographers Photographers from Berlin 20th-century American photographers Dutch emigrants to France German emigrants to the Netherlands Fine art photographers French emigrants to the United States

History

Publications

Retrospective exhibitions

References

Further reading

External links