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CATEGORY: PHOTOGRAPHS

A unique museum piece by one of the leading photographers of the 20th century. Before his international establishment as a Vogue photographer, Erwin Blumenfeld was known as a dadaist artist and for his contributions to the French art magazine Verve. The print on sale is from 1937, the early Verve-period, just after Blumenfeld moved from Amsterdam to Paris. Extremely rare and only the true connaisseur will recognize its importance.

Buste de Jésus Christ église Saint Sauveur de Beauvais
Bust of Jesus Christ, Saint Sauveur church in Beauvais

Provenance: Galerie Fotokabinet, The Hague, 2009 < Rotterdam based conceptual artist (Thomas Hageraats) < Belgian art historian, critic, writer. Seen by the Erwin Blumenfeld Estate in 2009.


Creator:
Erwin Blumenfeld (1897, Berlin, Germany - 1969, Rome, Italy)

Object:
Photograph, gelatin silver print.

Country:
France

Design period:
1937

Production period:
1937 Vintage

Identifying marks:
Title: Notre Dame de la Grace, 1937 (French annotations handwritten on verso by himself). Year: 1937, handwritten on verso by himself). Photographers copyright stamp on verso.

Style:
Religious, portrait, artistic

Condition:
In near fine condition, some negative based spots and subtile blends

Material:
Gelatin silver print on baryta photographic paper

Colour:
Black & White

Dimensions:
Image: W 30.0 x H 24.0 cm | Matted: W 50.0 x H 40.0 cm


Biography
Erwin Blumenfeld was born in Berlin in 1897, moved to The Netherlands late 1918, and started a professional career in photography in 1934. In the 1930s, he published collages mocking Adolf Hitler. He emigrated to France in 1936, where his work was published in the fine art magazine Verve. When the Second World War broke out, he was interned in a concentration camp in 1940 because he was Jewish. In 1941, he could escape to the USA.

His more personal work is in black and white; his commercial work in fashion, much for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, is mostly in color. In both media he was a great innovator. In black and white he did all his work personally in the dark room. Vintage gelatin silver prints from his negatives are extremely rare, since almost all of his later work was shot on transparency film.

Together with André Kertesz and Man Ray, Blumenfeld was an important pioneer on creative photography. He experimented with solarization, double exposures, negative-positive combinations and montages. His early photographs of Madonna sculptures can be considered as lessons in composition and moods. Four of them were published in the book "My 100 best photos" (1979).

Recent exhibitions include Galerie Anders Thalman Zurich, Kicken Berlin, ParisGlobe Paris, Fotomuseum Den Haag and Gallery Modernism in San Francisco.

Keywords; Religious, Dutch, German, French, Jewish, Vogue, Historical, Rare, Museum. Top auction result: $ 124.806 (Philips, 08-05-2014)

About the church:
Beauvais Cathedral otherwise the Cathedral of Saint Peter of Beauvais (French: Cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Beauvais) is a Catholic church in the northern town of Beauvais, Oise, France. It is the seat of the Bishop of Beauvais, Noyon and Senlis. The cathedral is in the High Gothic style, and consists of a 13th-century choir, with an apse and seven polygonal apsidal chapels reached by an ambulatory, joined to a 16th-century transept. It has the highest Gothic choir in the world: 48.5 metres (159 ft) under vault. From 1569 to 1573 the cathedral of Beauvais was, with its tower of 153 m (502 ft), the highest human construction of the world.
ERWIN BLUMENFELD (1897-1969)
Le Christ de Beauvais, stamped vintage photograph, 1937
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€ 4.000,00