Lot Essay
Please note that Erwin Blumenfeld rarely signed his work.
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PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTOR, SWITZERLAND
'The female body became the plaything of Blumenfeld's fantasies; he cut it up, elongated it, distorted it, underlining the abstract beauty of an isolated detail. He was obsessed with Woman, transforming her, at times, into an ageless inaccessible goddess, at other times into a sleeping beauty surprised by the voyeur while awaiting the prince charming who will wake her from her long sleep.
The 'platonic erotomaniac' placed Woman beyond Blumenfeld's reach. From the depth of his childhood memories he remembered his first love paroxysms when he discovered women painted by Cranach, 'their insolent beauty all the more naked for their transparent veils...there was born in me the desire to see through the transparency.' (Blumenfeld: My One Hundred Best Photographs, p. 25)
Erwin Blumenfeld (1897-1969)
Nude under Wet Silk, Paris, 1937
Details
Erwin Blumenfeld (1897-1969)
Nude under Wet Silk, Paris, 1937
gelatin silver print
copyright credit stamp (on the verso)
11¾ x 9½in. (29.8 x 24.1cm.)
Nude under Wet Silk, Paris, 1937
gelatin silver print
copyright credit stamp (on the verso)
11¾ x 9½in. (29.8 x 24.1cm.)
Provenance
From the artist;
to the present owner
to the present owner
Literature
Erwin Blumenfeld, Folkwang Museum, Essen, 1975, pl. 26; Ewing/Schinz, Blumenfeld Photographs: A Passion for Beauty, Harry N. Abrams, 1996, pl. 61; Blumenfeld: My One Hundred Best Photographs, A. Zwemmer Ltd., 1981, pl. 133 (for a variant)