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拍品专文
FROM THE COLLECTION OF ALLISON V. SMITH
The following eight photographs by Erwin Blumenfeld reveal the story of a very special collaboration between this extraordinarily innovative photographer and the visionary Dallas retailer Stanley Marcus (1905-2002). As the 1949 letter from Blumenfeld (reproduced opposite) describes, these exquisite prints were chosen by Blumenfeld from among favorite images he had made in Paris and New York, many of which he continued to re-invent over the years through his relentless experimentation in the darkroom. Presented in exchange for a case of Blumenfeld's favorite Champagne, they mark the beginning of a fruitful collaboration of great mutual respect.
Marcus admired Blumenfeld's graphic inventiveness and experimentation. In subsequent correspondence from the same year, when asked to explain his technique of photographing through a special screen, Blumenfeld answers with offers of ideas for their next advertising campaign.
Marcus himself was a serious collector of books and art, and an avid amateur photographer. Jerrie Marcus Smith explains in the introduction to Reflections of a Man, a collection of her father's color photographs taken between 1937 and 1969 (edited with her daughter, the photographer Allison V. Smith [Carin Press, 2007]), that Marcus had built a darkroom in his home as early as 1937, and continued faithfully to print his own pictures despite the demanding and busy career of building the Neiman Marcus legacy.
Blumenfeld's letter attests to the interests and vision shared by the two men. Both were key figures in shaping taste and elegance in American fashion and lifestyle at mid-century through images presented on the richly printed pages of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. Both men dealt in extravagant, exhilirating dreams.
Blumenfeld's photographs are very rarely signed.
The following eight photographs by Erwin Blumenfeld reveal the story of a very special collaboration between this extraordinarily innovative photographer and the visionary Dallas retailer Stanley Marcus (1905-2002). As the 1949 letter from Blumenfeld (reproduced opposite) describes, these exquisite prints were chosen by Blumenfeld from among favorite images he had made in Paris and New York, many of which he continued to re-invent over the years through his relentless experimentation in the darkroom. Presented in exchange for a case of Blumenfeld's favorite Champagne, they mark the beginning of a fruitful collaboration of great mutual respect.
Marcus admired Blumenfeld's graphic inventiveness and experimentation. In subsequent correspondence from the same year, when asked to explain his technique of photographing through a special screen, Blumenfeld answers with offers of ideas for their next advertising campaign.
Marcus himself was a serious collector of books and art, and an avid amateur photographer. Jerrie Marcus Smith explains in the introduction to Reflections of a Man, a collection of her father's color photographs taken between 1937 and 1969 (edited with her daughter, the photographer Allison V. Smith [Carin Press, 2007]), that Marcus had built a darkroom in his home as early as 1937, and continued faithfully to print his own pictures despite the demanding and busy career of building the Neiman Marcus legacy.
Blumenfeld's letter attests to the interests and vision shared by the two men. Both were key figures in shaping taste and elegance in American fashion and lifestyle at mid-century through images presented on the richly printed pages of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. Both men dealt in extravagant, exhilirating dreams.
Blumenfeld's photographs are very rarely signed.