Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932)

Although Karl Blossfeldt devoted much of his life to photography, he attained renown as a photographer relatively late in life. Trained as a caster, Blossfeldt began his photographic work as an assistant to his teacher at Berlin's Kunstgewerbeschule, Moritz Meurer. Meurer advocated the study of plant specimens to instruct craftsmen in drawing, as well as for use as motifs in ornamental designs. Blossfeldt continued collecting and photographing plants under magnification as part of his own teaching methodology once he became an assistant teacher, and later lecturer, at the Kunstgewerbeschule.

Blossfeldt photographed his plant subjects against white, grey or sometimes black backgrounds. He used glass plate negatives coated with a thin orthochromatic emulsion , which enabled him to achieve the high contrast and clarity of detail for which his work is admired. Rather than printing his negatives, Blossfeldt produced slides for projection in his classes. For this reason, Blossfeldt scarcely exhibited his work and the photogravures in his two books constitute his primary medium outside of the classroom.

These intaglio photogravures (a photomechanical printing process) appeared in Blossfeldt's first book, "Urformen der Kunst" ["Archetypes of Art"], edited by Karl Nierendorf and published by the prestigious Berlin architectural publishing firm of Ernst Wasmuth in 1928. This publication created an immediate sensation and a second edition was published within the year. Various foreign language translations appeared soon thereafter. The wide critical acceptance of Blossfeldt's photographs in this book led to his association with avant-garde artists, including "Neue Sachlichkeit" (New Objectivity) and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's important "Film und Foto" exhibition of 1929.

My flower documents should contribute to restoring the relationship to nature. They should reawaken a sense for nature, point out its teeming richness of form, and prompt the viewer to observe for himself the local plant world. (Karl Blossfeldt, 1932)