untitled

Karl Blossfeldt

1865–1932

untitled, circa 1926–1930

Where object was made: Germany

Material/technique: gelatin silver print

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 25 x 15.6 cm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 9 13/16 x 6 1/8 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 19 x 14 in

Credit line: Museum purchase: Gift in honor of Del and Carol Shankel from friends and colleagues

Accession number: 1980.0039.08

Not on display

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Big Botany: Conversations with the Plant World

Karl Blossfeldt built his own camera with a long bellows for his extensive close-up work photographing plants. Blossfeldt generally collected his specimens in the countryside outside Berlin rather than in florist shops or botanical gardens. Taken together, his two volumes of close-up “plant portraits” against neutral backgrounds are a monument to New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) photography in Germany throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Blossfeldt took hundreds of detailed photographs for instruction in his classes at the Institute of the Royal Arts and Crafts Museum Berlin. He explained that his photographs were intended to “…portray diminutive forms on a convenient scale and encourage students to pay them more attention...”

Big Botany: Conversations with the Plant World