Page 108 - Expanded Photography

Expanded Photography Bob Cotton 108/146
Erwin Blumenfeld: Dada Dancers (1924) + Tara Twain (1935) + Marina (Solarised and Cut) 1937. Blumenfeld made himself famous - both in Europe and America - with his fashion photography, but he saw himself always in his original role - as a developing experimental photographic artist. He was given a camera age 10 in 1907, became involved with the Berlin Dadaists in the 1920s, emigrated to USA in 1941, and reputedly became the highest-paid photographer in the world, working mostly in fashion, but also advertising. His art photography, informed by his detailed knowledge and skills in darkroom techniques (what you might call ‘post-production techniques’ now). Other artists have made the Cut photograph famous (Stan Vanderbeek, John Stezaker), but it was Blumenfeld who showed the way.
I think Erwin Blumenfeld is a singularly under-appreciated artist-photographer. (By under-appreciated - I mean in the conventional art histories that limited their focus to painting, sculpture, architecture etc - largely ignoring the popular arts), His experimentation and willingness to explore in photograph- ic terms the various strands of modernism that were crying out for public attention in the first few decades of the 20th century (including Cubism, Expressionism, Futurism, Dada, Surrealism); to ex- plore also the variety of formal innovations of image manipulation - especially his solarised and cut pieces - places him on a par with those who pushed and expanded photography, and the perception of photographs as art, into the Modern. And it fell to others, including - Nicholas Muray, Paul Outer- bridge, Madame Yevonde - to explore the major technological-commercial innovation of the decade - the arrival of an accurate and pin-sharp colour-photographic film, developed first for the movies then as short strips of 35mm for still photography. There were several competing formats, including Car- bro, the British Vivex, and of course Kodachrome and Agfacolor Neu.
https://www.artsy.net/artwork/erwin-blumenfeld-dada-dancers-schule-der-physik