Erwin Blumenfeld had a full retrospective at the Jeu de Paume in Paris in 2013, so the arc of his photographic career, and its movements from Dada and Surrealism into the realms of high fashion, has been comprehensively detailed relatively recently. Given that context, this show takes a smart approach and heads for a narrow theme – the interconnected nature of Blumenfeld’s use of drapery, shadows, and veiling in his photography, primarily as seen in 1930s and 1940s pictures of the female form but also in a few portraits. It’s a tight edit, and that commonality of subject matter allows us to follow Blumenfeld’s experiments with composition and process more closely.
24 May 2018
