Verwandlungen durch Licht

Helmar Lerski :: Verwandlungen durch Licht # 604, 1935-1936. Nachlass Helmar Lerski; Museum Folkwang, Essen & Albertina Museum
Helmar Lerski (1871–1956) :: Metamorphosis Through Light (572), Tel Aviv, 1936. | src Christie’s
Helmar Lerski :: Untitled # 592, from Metamorphosis Through Light, Tel Aviv, 1936. | src Christie’s
Helmar Lerski (1871–1956) :: Metamorphosis Through Light (572), Tel Aviv, 1936. | src Christie’s
Helmar Lerski :: “Aus dem Werk” (“From the Factory”), from the “Verwandlungen des Lichts” (“Transformations of Light”) series, No. 540, 1936. Nachlass Helmar Lerski; Museum Folkwang, Essen
Helmar Lerski :: Verwandlungen durch Licht # 537, 1935-1936. Nachlass Helmar Lerski; Museum Folkwang, Essen & Albertina Museum
Helmar Lerski :: Verwandlungen durch Licht # 536, 1935-1936. Nachlass Helmar Lerski; Museum Folkwang, Essen & Albertina Museum
Helmar Lerski :: Verwandlungen durch Licht # 885, 1935-1936. Nachlass Helmar Lerski; Museum Folkwang, Essen & Albertina Museum

Faces. The power of the human visage (2021)

Starting from Helmar Lerski’s outstanding photo series Metamorphosis through Light (1935/36), the exhibition Faces presents portraits from the period of the Weimar Republic.

The 1920s and ’30s saw photographers radically renew the conventional understanding of the classic portrait: their aim was no longer to represent an individual’s personality; instead, they conceived of the face as material to be staged according to their own ideas. In this, the photographed face became a locus for dealing with avant-garde aesthetic ideas as well as interwar-period social developments. And it was thus that modernist experiments, the relationship between individual and general type, feminist roll-playing, and political ideologies collided in—and thereby expanded—the general understanding of portrait photography.

Faces. Die Macht des Gesichts (2021)

Die Ausstellung Faces in der ALBERTINA präsentiert Porträts der deutschen Zwischenkriegszeit. Ausgangspunkt dafür ist Helmar Lerskis herausragende Fotoserie Verwandlungen durch Licht (1935/36).

In den 1920er- und 30er-Jahren erneuern Fotografinnen und Fotografen das Verständnis des klassischen Porträts radikal: Ihre Aufnahmen dienen nicht mehr der Darstellung der Persönlichkeit eines Menschen, sondern fassen das Gesicht als nach ihren Vorstellungen inszenierbares Material auf.

Über das fotografierte Gesicht werden sowohl ästhetische Überlegungen der Avantgarde als auch gesellschaftliche Entwicklungen der Zwischenkriegszeit dargestellt. Experimente mit neuer Formensprache, das Verhältnis zwischen Individuum und Typ, feministische Rollenspiele und politische Ideologien treffen aufeinander und erweitern damit das Verständnis der Porträtfotografie.

Quelle : Albertina Museum

Blossoms by Dassonville

pictorialism, flowers, 1910s, 1920s
William Edward Dassonville (1879-1957) :: Blossoms, early 20th century | src liveauctioneers
William Edward Dassonville (1879-1957) :: Blossoms, early 20th century | src liveauctioneers

Flower blossoms photographed by William Dassonville; very different from his usual landscape repertoire.

William Edward Dassonville (1879-1957) :: Blossoms, early 20th century | src liveauctioneers
William Edward Dassonville (1879-1957) :: Blossoms, early 20th century | src liveauctioneers
William Edward Dassonville (1879-1957) :: Blossoms, early 20th century | src liveauctioneers
William Edward Dassonville (1879-1957) :: Blossoms, early 20th century | src liveauctioneers
William Edward Dassonville (1879-1957) :: Blossoms, early 20th century | src liveauctioneers
William Edward Dassonville (1879-1957) :: Blossoms, early 20th century | src liveauctioneers

William E. Dassonville was a California photographer primarily known for his landscapes. He was an associate of Ansel Adams and worked with William Keith, George Stirling, Maynard Dixon, and John Miur. Born in Sacramento, CA, he acted as secretary of the California Camera Club and contributed to Camera Craft. He also invented a velvety surfaced printing paper that he later manufactured commercially (REF: Getty). His chemistry was heralded by Ansel Adams and Imogen Cunningham, and he exhibited alongside Alfred Stieglitz, Clarence White, and Gertrude Kasebier (REF: icp org) | src liveauctioneers

Étude de marguerites ca. 1880

Étude de marguerites, ca. 1880. Tirage Albuminé. numeroté 551 dans l'image | src Millon
Étude de marguerites, ca. 1880. Tirage Albuminé. numeroté 551 dans l’image | src Millon

Schon fast lebendig

Aenne Biermann :: Orchid, ca. 1930. Gelatin silver print. [Detail] From : Aenne Biermann : Up Close and Personal at Tel Aviv Museum of Art
Aenne Biermann :: Orchid, ca. 1930. Gelatin silver print. [Detail] From : Aenne Biermann : Up Close and Personal at Tel Aviv Museum of Art
Aenne Biermann :: Schon fast lebendig. Orchid, ca. 1930. Gelatin silver print. © Collection Biermann family. | Museum Ludwig, Köln
Aenne Biermann :: Schon fast lebendig. Orchid, ca. 1930. Gelatin silver print. © Collection Biermann family. | Museum Ludwig, Köln
Aenne Biermann (1898 – 1933) :: Ohne Titel (Anthurium), 1927. Gelatin silver print. NGA purchase through Kicken Gallery, Berlin, 2018. | src National Gallery of Art
Aenne Biermann (1898 – 1933) :: Ohne Titel (Anthurium), 1927. Gelatin silver print. NGA purchase through Kicken Gallery, Berlin, 2018. | src National Gallery of Art
Aenne Biermann (1898-1933) :: Funkia 1926. Gelatin silver print. | src MoMA
Aenne Biermann (born Anna Sibilla Sternfeld, 1898-1933) :: Funkia 1926. Gelatin silver print. | src MoMA

Germaine Webb par Rudomine

Mlle Germaine WEBB qui vient de remporter un si grand succès de comédienne dans "Sin", la féerie chinoise de M. Maurice Magre, musique de M. André Gailhard. Photo: Rudomine. | Comoedia Illustré, 1921
Mlle Germaine WEBB qui vient de remporter un si grand succès de comédienne dans “Sin”, la féerie chinoise de M. Maurice Magre, musique de M. André Gailhard. Photo: Rudomine. | Comoedia Illustré, 1921

Easter Lily by Alma Lavenson

detail
Alma Lavenson :: Easter Lily, 1932. Gelatin silver print. Signed in pencil on the Crescent Board mount; titled and dated in ink on the ’58 Wildwood Gardens, Piedmont, California’. | src Phillips

Pink carnation (1910s)

autochrome 1910s
Karl Struss (1886-1981) :: [Pink carnation - single bloom], ca. 1910-1917. Additive color screen plate. | src Amon Carter Museum P1983.24.19
Karl Struss (1886-1981) :: [Pink carnation – single bloom], ca. 1910-1917. Additive color screen plate. | src Amon Carter Museum P1983.24.19

Lily Steiner by André Steiner

aka Oeil de femme, eye of a woman (Lily Steiner) (?)
André Steiner :: Untitled, 1934. Vintage gelatin silver print. | src Gitterman Gallery
André Steiner :: Untitled, 1934. Vintage gelatin silver print. | src Gitterman Gallery
Andor Steiner :: Lily, Paris, 1928. Tirage argentique.
André Steiner [Andor Steiner] :: Lily, Paris, 1928. Tirage argentique. | src Binoche et Giquello
André Steiner :: Leica, Hongrie, 1935. Tirage argentique. | src Binoche et Giquello
André Steiner :: Leica, Hongrie, 1935. Tirage argentique. | src Binoche et Giquello
André Steiner :: Sans titre, Saint-Moritz, 1935. Tirage argentique. | src Binoche et Giquello
André Steiner :: Sans titre, Saint-Moritz, 1935. Tirage argentique. | src Binoche et Giquello

Binia Bill photomontage

photomontage, photocomposite, photocollage
Binia Bill :: Ohne titel (Blume, Blüte, Augen, Frau, Gesicht, Nase, Raster, Fotomontage), 1930s. | src Fotostiftung Schweiz
Binia Bill :: Ohne titel (Blume, Blüte, Augen, Frau, Gesicht, Nase, Raster, Fotomontage), 1930s. | src Fotostiftung Schweiz
Binia Bill :: Ohne titel (Blume, Blüte, Augen, Frau, Gesicht, Nase, Raster, Fotomontage), 1930s. | src Fotostiftung Schweiz
Binia Bill :: Untitled (Detail), 1930s. | src Fotostiftung Schweiz

A Woman’s Lips, ca. 1929

Martin Munkácsi :: A Woman's Lips, ca. 1929. Gelatin silver print. | src The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Martin Munkácsi :: A Woman’s Lips, ca. 1929. Gelatin silver print. | src The Metropolitan Museum of Art

When Martin Munkacsi arrived in Berlin in 1927, he found a metropolis bursting with artistic innovation. Photography was particularly fertile ground for the principles of Surrealism, the New Vision, and the New Objectivity, all of which had captured the imaginations of many avant-garde photographers. Munkacsi was introduced to these ideas through his employer Kurt Safranski, the managing editor of the Ullstein publications, and began to conduct his own experiments in the late 1920s. This image was likely one such enterprise; it features the close-up view favored by avant-garde photographers, and the unusual cropping is characteristic of Surrealism, in which disembodied lips regularly materialized as erotic symbols. [quoted from The Met]