Erwin Blumenfeld

Erwin Blumenfeld was a photographer of German-Jewish origin. He was born in Berlin in 1897 and died in Rome in 1969.

 

Erwin Blumenfeld’s arrival in Paris in 1936 marked the beginning of his career as a professional photographer. Prior to that year, the had tried his hand at a variety of disciplines, doing amateur photography and creating Dada collages, painting and writing short stories alongside working in his leather goods shop. 

 

Man Ray’s contemporary soon established himself on the fertile ground of the Ville Lumière, landing his first commissions and publishing professional photographs. VERVE, the new art magazine, introduced his impressive works to a highly discerning French audience. Commissions from VOGUE and HARPER’S BAZAAR eventually enabled him to reach America, and to save his life. 

 

Luck was often on Blumenfeld’s side: he survived the First World War as a soldier and later slipped through the Nazi grip. Most importantly, however, he was able to give artistic form to his admiration of feminine beauty and to carve a successful career from his inclination. The photographer had a weakness for women – they were his strength. 

His beauties were aloof and often veiled, less from prudishness than in a playful evocation of the hidden unconscious – Freud’s discovery – and exuding an erotic aura. 

 

In 1938 Blumenfeld’s love of silk and tulle blossomed in his iconic Nude under Wet Silk series. He also used solarisation to erect a magic barrier and made masterful use of various other techniques – mirror-images, double exposures, shadow images, screens, etc. – to endow his subjects with a hint of surrealism. 

 

Alongside his many commissions for fashion and advertising photography, Blumenfeld always continued to photograph women and nudes. Just as he had earlier animated sculptures by breathing life into them, he would often imbue his photographs with hints of the abstract or the sculptural. His portraits of female beauty are time-capsules of their day. They have become valuable rarities and will remain so in the future.