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Jeu de Paume opens Erwin Blumenfeld (1897-1969) Photographs, drawings and photomontages exhibition

Jeu de Paume presents Erwin Blumenfeld (1897-1969) Photographs, drawings and photomontages an exhibition on view 15 OCTOBER 2013 UNTIL 26 JANUARY 2014.

Erwin Blumenfeld, Trois profils. Variante de la photographie parue dans l’article "Color and lighting" [Couleur et éclairage], de Photograph Annual 1952, 1952. Impression jet d’encre sur papier Canson baryta, tirage posthume (2012). Collection Henry Blumenfeld.© The Estate of Erwin Blumenfeld.
Erwin Blumenfeld, Trois profils. Variante de la photographie parue dans l’article “Color and lighting” [Couleur et éclairage], de Photograph Annual 1952, 1952. Impression jet d’encre sur papier Canson baryta, tirage posthume (2012). Collection Henry Blumenfeld.© The Estate of Erwin Blumenfeld.

Erwin Blumenfeld’s life and work impressively document the socio-political context of artistic development between the two World Wars, while highlighting the individual consequences of emigration. The exhibition devoted to Erwin Blumenfeld’s multi-layered œuvre brings together over 300 works and documents from the late 1910s to the 1960s, and encompasses the various media explored by the artist throughout his career: drawings, photographs, montages and collages.

This exhibition traces his visual creativity and encompasses the early drawings, the collages and montages, which mostly stem from the early 1920s, the beginnings of his portrait art in Holland, the first black and white fashion photographs of the Paris period, the masterful colour photography created in New York and the urban photos taken toward the end of his life.

The retrospective also showcases his drawings, many of which have never been shown before, as well as his early collages and photomontages, shedding fascinating light on the evolution of his photographic oeuvre and revealing the full extent of his creative genius. The now classic motifs of his experimental black-and-white photographs can be seen alongside his numerous selfportraits and portraits of famous and little-known people, as well as his fashion and advertising work.

CURATOR: Ute Eskildsen, former deputy director and head of the photographical collections for the Museum Folkwang, Essen.