Karl Blossfeldt

When Karl Blossfeldt died in Berlin on December 3, 1932, he left behind him several thousand negatives of plants, flowers, leaves, buds, ramifications, umbels, and capsules.

Blossfeldt uses these as essential pedagogical elements in the School of Decorative Arts of Charlottenhurg (Berlin), where he teaches design as of 1899. Following the steps of his master Moritz Meurer, he sees in vegetal forms the archetypes applicable to architecture. He projects these images of plants to demonstrate to his students, future conceivers of the industry, that nature has always found the best solutions in the organisation and structure of forms.

The consecutive publication of his two books Urformen der Kunst ('Original Forms of Art'), and Wundergarten der Natur ('The Enchanted Garden of Nature'), in 1928 and 1932, associate him unwillingly to the avant-garde vision of New Objectivity, illustrated with splendour, in photography, by Albert Renger-Patzsch in his book Die Welt ist schön (The world is beautiful) in 1928. His approach to photography (inventory, frontal vision, readability of detail, neutrality and objectivity) also inspired a new generation of German artists who, in the 1970s and around Bernd and Hilla Bocher, use a similar photographic approach.

This exhibit, conceived as a brief tribute to Karl Blossfeldt, presents original prints. It was created with the kind participation of Ann and Jürgen Wilde (Karl Blossfeldt archives, Cologne).