Blumenfeld @ Somerset House
Posted on 28 May 2013
Erwin Blumenfeld was born in 1897 in Berlin into a Jewish bourgeois family. After his father's death he entered an apprenticeship in the garment industry and then served as a soldier in France in the First World War, In 1918 he left to Holland and married Lena Citroen, opening a leather goods shop in Amsterdam in 1923 whilst also trying to become a painter. During the early twenties he participated in the Dada movement as a self-proclaimed head of the Dutch Dada movement, under the pseudonym of Jan Bloomfield. He began experimenting with photography in the early thirties, taking photographs of customers in his shop and later exhibiting his works at the Van Lier gallery in Amsterdam. When his business went bankrupt, he left for Paris in 1935 where he was introduced to the world of fashion photography and to French Vogue magazine, thanks to Cecil Beaton who admired his photographs. During World War II, Blumenfeld was interned in French war camps but managed to escape to the US with his family in 1941 through Marseilles. In New York where he was offered a contract by Harper’s Bazaar and after three years began freelance work for Vogue US. Within a few years he had become one of the most famous color fashion photographers in the US. He continued to work in fashion and advertising until the early sixties, when he devoted his time to writing his autobiography 'Eye to I He died in Rome in 1969.
Do you want to know who am I talking about? Let his work speak for itself.
A little bit shocking, a little bit hidden messages, something to reach for and something to look at.
See his exhibition at beautiful Somerset House from 23rd of May to 1st of September. I know you will say: 'Oh, plenty of time...' just remember this exhibition that will be a criminal to miss.
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