Fashion, fine art and Hitler: the turbulent career of Erwin Blumenfeld in pictures | Art and

His fashion career was disrupted by the second world war, but that didnt stop the Jewish photographer from sneaking fine art into his later work Mee-Lai Stone Wed 23 Nov 2022 02.00EST Last modified on Mon 28 Nov 2022 14.07EST

Fashion, fine art … and Hitler: the turbulent career of Erwin Blumenfeld – in pictures

His fashion career was disrupted by the second world war, but that didn’t stop the Jewish photographer from sneaking fine art into his later work

@mlestone Main image: ‘I thought I was modern but I turned out to be classical’ … In Vogue 1938-1939. Photograph: The Estate of Erwin Blumenfeld

Wed 23 Nov 2022 02.00 EST Last modified on Mon 28 Nov 2022 14.07 EST

  • Self-Portrait in the Photography Studio of the Rue Delambre Paris, 1939

    Born into a Jewish family in Berlin in 1897, Erwin Blumenfeld was beginning to make his name in Paris as a fashion photographer when the German occupation took place. He was interned in various camps in France and Morocco before resurrecting his career in the US after 1941. A new exhibition featuring 180 photographs casts new light on his art and life during the second world war. The Trials and Tribulations of Erwin Blumenfeld: 1930-1950 is at Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme, Paris, France until 5 March 2023

  • The Dictator: Amsterdam, 1933

    In 1933, Blumenfeld produced a series of photomontages in reaction to Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany: on a portrait of the Führer, he painted tears of blood and superimposed a skull. Although these compositions critical of Nazism are comparable to those of the Berlin Dadaist John Heartfield (born Helmut Herzfeld, 1891-1968), Blumenfeld’s message differed. Heartfield’s Marxist-motivated photomontages for the review AIZ insisted on Hitler as an instrument of industrial and capitalist power, whereas Blumenfeld portrayed the Führer as an embodiment of death

  • The Dictator: Paris, 1937

    In 1937, Blumenfeld titled an image of an antique bust with a calf’s head The Minotaur or The Dictator. The image of the minotaur, a mythological monster with a man’s body and a bull’s head, was then fashionable among artists fascinated by man’s animality. This creature rapidly came to symbolise the brutality of the dictatorships that emerged in the 20th century. Blumenfeld once said: ‘More than to anyone else, I owe a debt of gratitude to Schicklgruber, the Führer. Without him […] I would never have had the courage to become a photographer’

  • Nude Under Wet Silk Series: Paris, 1937 (Margarethe von Sievers)

    As soon as he arrived in Paris in 1936, Blumenfeld began experimenting prolifically. He employed accessories – veils, opaque glass, mirrors – and sophisticated lighting, then reworked his images in the darkroom. Influenced by the compositional techniques of the New Vision movement, he experimented with solarisations, reticulations, superimpositions, optical and mirror effects and contrasts of light and dark to create a personal formal grammar in which female beauty and the nude has pride of place

  • Nude Under Wet Silk Series: Paris, 1937 (Margarethe von Sievers)

    Blumenfeld once declared: ‘For me, the greatest magic of the 20th century is the darkroom.’ He is also quoted as saying: ‘What I really wanted to be was a photographer pure and simple, dedicated to his art’s sake alone, a denizen of the new world, which the American Jew, Man Ray, had triumphantly discovered’

  • Portraits of Cecil Beaton: Paris, 1938

    In 1938, admiring his work, the British photographer Cecil Beaton introduced him to Michel de Brunhoff, editor of Paris Vogue, who hired him immediately

  • In Vogue: Lisa Fonssagrives on the Eiffel Tower, Paris, 1939

    Blumenfeld demonstrated his talent with a series of images such as this one of the model Lisa Fonssagrives striking a vertiginous pose on the structures of the Eiffel Tower. It was published in the May 1939 issue of Paris Vogue

  • In Vogue: Untitled, Boucheron jewels for Vogue Paris, 1939

    In 1939, Blumenfeld signs a contract with Harper’s Bazaar to follow French fashion, but on returning to Paris he and his family are caught and forced to live in various internment camps. They manage finally to emigrate to New York in August 1941

  • In Vogue: Untitled, corset Laure Belin for Vogue Paris, 1939

    In the 1940s, Blumenfeld, approaching 50, established himself as one of New York’s leading fashion photographers. His covers for magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue are classics

  • Freedom of Forms and Colours: Natalia Pascov Series, New York, 1942

    As his career in fashion photography gathered increasing momentum, Blumenfeld set up his own studio near Central Park in 1943. The exhibition includes a series based around one of his favourite models Natalia Pascov. The colour photographs appeared in Life magazine; many of the black and white images were made for his own pleasure in photographic experimentation

  • Freedom of Forms and Colours: Natalia Pascov Series, New York, 1942

    In the US, Blumenfeld was a pioneer thanks to his innovative use of colour photography. The medium opened up new horizons and novel harmonies for him

  • Vogue US: Red Cross, New York, 1945

    In 1944, Blumenfeld left Harper’s Bazaar and took his famous photos for the covers of Vogue and other magazines. He deplored his difficulty in imposing his ideas on artistic directors obsessed with commercial prerogatives. Yet he prided himself on ‘smuggling art’ into these images, pursuing increasingly freely in parallel his personal exploration of form, colour and movement, always centred on the female body

  • Artistic References (Johannes Vermeer): New York, 1945

    The exhibition traces Blumenfeld’s development via the links he forged with the old masters and modern art in his imagery. His photography drew on the visual arts from antiquity to the present day. He sometimes ‘recreated’ famous pictures such as Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring

  • Artistic References (Georges Seurat): New York, 1947

    More frequently he included discreet allusions in his images, little winks to the past in which models borrow poses from famous works such as Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus and Seurat’s Model. ‘I thought that I was a modern [artist], but I turned out to be classical. I have no idea what that really means, but people classified me that way so often that in the end it seemed plausible enough’

  • Artistic References (François Boucher): Paris, 1939

    From the outset, Blumenfeld’s nudes convey a certain fascination for sculpture: his draped nudes are reminiscent of the subtly veiled female figures in the Egyptian art of the Amarna period (14th-century BC). The dialogue with the masters he maintained throughout his life reflects his desire to situate his work in the grand tradition of western art
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