“What I actually desired: to be a photographer in onself, art for art’s sake, a new world that the American Jew Male Ray had actually just found in victory.”
Erwin Blumenfeld, Jadis et Daguerre– eds. Babel, 2022
From his setup in Paris in 1936, inspired by the example of Male Ray, Blumenfeld participated in a number of experiments. The female body became the primary item of his formal expeditions. He utilized devices– veils, frosted glass, mirrors–, sophisticated lighting during shooting sessions, and remodelled his images printing, in specific by masking, overprinting, solarisation or reticulation. “For me, the greatest magic of the 20th century is the darkroom,” he says.
Admiring his works, the British photographer Cecil Beaton presented him in 1937 to Michel de Brunhoff, editor-in-chief of Vogue Paris, who right away hired him. He showed his skill in series of images like those of design Lisa Fonssagrives stabilizing on the structures of the Eiffel Tower, released in the May 1939 problem of Vogue.
He continued his style career in New York, for Harper’s Fair from 1939, a profession disrupted during his 2 years of wandering in France from 39 to 41, then for Style US and many others.
He never ever tired of the magic of photography, in black and white in addition to in color.
The exhibit shows all his speculative elements, in his individual and magazines works.
Managers: Nadia Blumenfeld-Charbit and Nicolas Feuillie
Les Tribulations d’Erwin Blumenfeld, 1930-1950 Till March 5,
2023
mahJ: Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaïsme
Hôtel de Saint-Aignan
71 Rue du Temple
75003 Paris, France
https://mahj.org/fr
Catalog: Les Tribulations d’Erwin Blumenfeld. Eds. mahJ/NMR 2022
www.erwinblumenfeld.com