ERWIN BLUMENFELD

Erwin Blumenfeld was born in Berlin in 1897 to a Jewish family. He started his career as a photographer in 1932, taking shots of customers at his leather goods shop in Amsterdam. After his shop went bankrupt, Blumenfeld went to Paris, where he plunged into the world of photographic art and was asked to take pictures of Henri Matisse and Georges Rouault. A couple of years later, he met Cecil Beaton, who was so impressed with Blumenfeld’s works that he helped him to conclude a contract with Vogue in 1937. Erwin Blumenfeld’s art was influenced by famous masters, such as Man Ray, Valeska Gert, Leonor Fini, François Mauriac, Yvette Guilbert, and Josephine Baker. He also found inspiration in artworks by George Gross and Lucas Cranach. Today, Blumenfeld is famous for his valuable contribution to fashion photography. He did a great deal of work in the sphere of art photography, taking portraits and creating collages and drawings under the influence of dadaists. Fashion photographs by Erwin Blumenfeld are often made in color, while his other stories are monochromatic. He used various photographic methods, such as double exposure, multilayer printing, solarisation, fogging, and reflections. After moving to New York, Blumenfeld started to work for Harper’s Bazaar, the American edition of Vogue, Life, Flair, and Look. He also did advertising campaigns for Helena Rubinstein, L’Oréal, and Elizabeth Arden. By 1950, he was the highest-paid fashion photographer in the world. Blumenfeld spent his last years working on his book My One Hundred Best Photos, which contained only four photographs from the world of fashion. Works by Erwin Blumenfeld have been exhibited around the world, including at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (1982), the Israel Museum in Jerusalem (1981), the Barbican Centre in London (1996), the Netherlands Photo Museum (2006), and the Somerset House in London (2013).