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Description: 'COTULA TURBINATA'

measurements note
11 3/4 by 9 3/8 in. (30 by 23.9 cm.)

titled and annotated '12x mag.' by the photographer in pencil on the reverse, matted, framed, circa 1925

PROVENANCE

Private European collection

Sotheby's New York, 15 and 16 October 1992, Sale 6344, Lot 405

Ehlers Caudill Gallery, Chicago, Illinois

Acquired by the present owners from the above, 1992

NOTE

Blossfeldt first conceived of making magnified photographs of natural forms as a student at the Royal School of the Museum of Decoration in Berlin. After being criticized by a professor for the inaccuracy of his design of a dragonfly's wing, Blossfeldt was inspired to take an enlarged photograph of the insect to justify his rendering. Through this experience, Blossfeldt realized that magnified photographs of natural forms could be of use to students of art and design.

Blossfeldt was encouraged in this work by Professor Moritz Meurer. Meurer, who believed that natural forms had influenced art, design, and architecture throughout history, was charged in 1890 with creating a new methodology for teaching drawing at design schools in Germany. Under Meurer's direction, his small team of students gathered botanical specimens, made sketches and models, and photographed sections of plants. Blossfeldt excelled at this last task, and continued to work with Maurer until 1897. From 1898 until his death in 1932, Blossfeldt devoted himself to teaching macro-photography of plant forms to students at the Charlottenburg School of Arts and Crafts. In 1928, a collection of 120 photogravure plates of his plant photographs was published in Urformen der Kunst. Wundergarten der Natur and numerous other books followed.

Blossfeldt's inspired and extensive photographs of the stems, buds, leaves, and flowers of plants, enlarged many times, were initially intended as a tool for students. In 1929, Moholy-Nagy included Blossfeldt's work in Room One of the important 'Film und Foto' exhibition in Stuttgart as examples of a new, objective vision in photography, thus putting his work in a new context.