The Naked and the Veiled: The Photographic Nudes of Erwin Blumenfeld [Hardcover]

Erwin Blumenfeld (Author), Yorick Blumenfeld (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1999

Blumenfeld gained fame as a fashion photographer, but he always considered his nude photographs to be his best and most important work. As a man he was obsessed with the female form. As an artist he worked endlessly to perfect a technique that would express that fascination - through solarization and negative printing, double and multiple exposures and other innovative devices. The 120 duotone and colour photographs shown here represent the peak of Blumenfeld's achievement. They have been selected by his son, Yorick, who also contributes an informative text. The book spans Blumenfeld's whole career from 1930s Amsterdam to 1960s New York. Blumenfeld's nudes - naturalistic, art-inspired, surrealist and erotic - represent an unrepeatable episode in the history of photography.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Erwin Blumenfeld shot to fame in 1938 with the publication of 14 sensational nude photographs in Verve magazine. The commission led to a career as one of the most gifted and sought-after fashion photographers of the '40s and '50s. However, throughout his career Blumenfeld remained fascinated with the naked female form and its representation within photography. In The Naked and the Veiled: The Photographic Nudes of Erwin Blumenfeld, his son Yorick traces Erwin's fascination with the nude to his visit at the age of 9 to an artist's studio in Berlin. Surprised by the young boy's entrance, the naked model "quickly threw a diaphanous cloth over herself. But the outline of her body was still visible against the light." Inspired by this moment, Blumenfeld later claimed that women could become "even more naked by their transparent veils." A psychoanalyst would have a field day with this comment, as well as Blumenfeld's subsequently compulsive and fetishistic photographs of the naked female form, captured over 40 years spanning his early days in Holland in the 1920s to his later years in the USA in the 1960s.

The 120 illustrations in duotone and color crisply reproduce Blumenfeld's obsession, from early experiments in form inspired by surrealism (and Man Ray in particular) to later, more classical nudes, playing with images of transparency and opacity. The Naked and the Veiled is an extraordinary photographic diary of a self-confessed "erotomaniac." --Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk

From Library Journal

Blumenfeld (1897-1969)was a member of that generation of artists and intellectuals who came to America to escape the Third Reich. Always a deeply experimental photographer who sought to manipulate his images in the darkroom, Blumenfeld became an extremely influential fashion photographer for venues like Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. Throughout his career, he studied the female form, making a lifelong project of highly engineered nude photos that were too risque? to be published by the standards of their time. He viewed these photos as descended from the Venuses of Botticelli and Lucas Cranach, and Blumenfeld's impact is large enough to be seen in the work of heirs as divergent as Helmut Newton and Cindy Sherman. His son here compiles the work into aesthetic categories (though a plain chronological arrangement would have better shown the evolution of his style) and contributes well-written biocritical essays. Within the demimonde of artistic nude photography, this is a landmark publication of great use to all larger art collections.
-Douglas F. Smith, Oakland P.L., CA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Thames & Hudson (October 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0500542309
• ISBN-13: 978-0500542309
• Product Dimensions: 11.9 x 9.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #731,196 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Blumenfeld Didn't Need A Computer!, January 23, 2001

By 

carol irvin "carol irvin" (United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Naked and the Veiled: The Photographic Nudes of Erwin Blumenfeld (Hardcover)

I had my sister get me this book for Christmas so as to further my study of the nude. Knowing that the work inside was all about a half century or more old, I wasn't expecting highly innovative or original work but I indeed did find it. How stupid of me to think that his art work might be less fresh because he didn't have the photo equipment we now have or a computer. This study of his work is certainly proof positive that all an artist really needs is a first rate imagination! His fascination is the female nude. He "hides" that nude in some way in each shot but his results end up exposing the subject rather than obscuring it. Actually, it was a relief in many ways to see the art work of someone who was neither handicapped nor helped by state of the art machinery and equipment. Don't hold off buying this book because the work came from many earlier decades. The front cover image is very representative of the quality and content inside the book.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good photographs, weak presentation, February 16, 2002

By 

D. Johnson (Palo Alto, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Naked and the Veiled: The Photographic Nudes of Erwin Blumenfeld (Hardcover)

As a book this is a mediocre to poor presentation of an interesting mid-century photographer. The photographs are well reproduced and show a wide range of content and intent. Woman as sex object, woman as hardware, woman as mystified naked girl and anything else that fit Blumenfeld's fantasy.

The author is the son of the photographer who tries everything from freudian analysis to name dropping to make his father seem important. This detracts from the work. If you look at the photographs as the record of an artist who worked his way through Europe to New York over the middle 40 years of the twentieth century, you will find some art history and maybe some insight on how the artist evolved and how the craft changed over the most hectic time in its history.

Blumenfeld was a pragmatic professional illustrator. Most of his imagery is either derivative or based on tradition. Man Ray, Ruth Bernhard, and many others seem to have influenced him.

This is a good collection of different treatments of the nude female figure by an accomplished craftsman. It could serve as a starting point for thinking of how to or how not to approach the subject. Blumenfeld is at his best when he is simply doing graphic illustration and not "serious art". Some of it is warm and funny. His commercial work is very good and should stimulate other artists.

Just don't expect the unforgettable originality of Bernhard, Weston, Penn or their ilk.