This book introduces us to yet another aspect of Erwin Blumenfeld's work, his political and photographic montages in the dadaist movement.
Blumenfeld is best known for his fashion and beauty photographs of the mid-twentieth century. However when one reads his wonderful autobiography : "Eye to I", a large part is focused on his childhood in Berlin in the early 1900's, and his years after the First World War, in Amsterdam and Paris. He was the self-proclaimed head of the dutch dadaist movement under the pseudonym Jan Bloomfield, and this richly illustrated book gives us an unprecedented picture of his drawing and collage activity in the years 1918 through 1930, before he embraced photography.
Helen Adkins, the author, an art historian based in Berlin, shows his role in this iconoclastic dada movement, and also his interaction with Tristan Tzara, George Gross and Paul Citroen. She also presents Blumenfeld's many photos that are inspired by his work on dada montages: this will interest all those who would like to know where Blumenfeld's strong graphic sense, in his Vogue fashion covers of the fifties, comes from, as well as all historians of photography and art.
This book will also captivate those interested in the history of the 20th century, as many montages of the early thirties clearly show the menace of Hitler in Europe. This did not escape a Berliner, nor did it save him when he was later caught up by WWII, in France...