Summer Assignment 2013
South Carolina
Georgia
London
Croatia
The Blumenfeld archive
During the summer I went to the Blumenfeld archive exhbition. Erwin Blumenfeld (1897 – 1969) a Berlin born Jew immersed in the European avant–garde, immigrated to New York in 1941 to become one of the world's most influential fashion photographers. This exhibition focused on the archives of his photography studio. Deteriorated and faded photos have been digitally reconstructed by
the laboratory of the Nicephore Niepce Museum, Chalon-sur-Saone.
I learnt that there are two types of colour photograph:
Blumenfeld also did a lot of American Colour prints.
His work embodied a period of discovery and fascination with colour photography in America. He experimented widely, from references to european painting to the provocative undermining of convention through Kitsch stagings and unexpected colours at the borders of good taste.
Favourites
Three Profiles - Variant of the photograph published in the article 'colour and lighting' in photograph annual 1952 pg.145
Chesterfield cigarettes advertising photograph, circa 1956. (model: Nancy Berg)
Grace Kelly for Cosmopolitan cover photograph, April 1955. Dress by Oleg Cassini.
Lisa Fonssagrives on the Eiffel Tower, 1939, Paris, by Erwin Blumenfeld.