Erwin Blumenfeld - Photographer & Artist

Welcome to the portal for Erwin Blumenfeld, regarded as one of the most influential photographers of the twentieth century. An experimenter and innovator, he produced an extensive body of work throughout his thirty-five year career including black and white portraits and nudes, celebrity portraiture, advertising campaigns and his renowned fashion photography.

This site has been created by grandchildren of Erwin Blumenfeld as a one-stop resource for anyone interested in his work.

Here you will be able to find a time-line listing all the key events in Erwin Blumenfeld's life and artisitic career, in chronological order, starting with his biography which we've broken down into four parts, Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris and New York. Also on the time-line, you'll find a complete list of his exhibitions, past, current and future, as well as all his publications to date. We're also in the process of archiving all of Erwin Blumenfeld's photographs, many of which can be found here as can many of his collages and his little-known fashion films. You will be able to click through to museums and galleries who have examples of Erwin Blumenfeld's work, see excerpts from his acclaimed autobiography, Eye To I (Einbildungsroman), and see excerpts from the documentary "The Man Who Shot Beautiful Women" about his life and work.

When Erwin Blumenfeld died in 1969 he left the disposal rights of his photographic archive to his assistant, Marina Schinz.

At the time there was little interest in vintage prints and Marina chose to divide the prints into four parts, one for each of the three children and one for herself.

Having four disparate stakeholders in Erwin Blumenfeld's legacy has caused a lot of confusion amongst curators, galleries, museums, collectors, editors and publishers. There has not been one guide to the Erwin Blumenfeld story, until now.

Additionally, the Erwin Blumenfeld prints that have come to the surface until now has also not neccessarily been Blumenfeld's finest work.

Today, Erwin Blumenfeld's grandchildren, Paulette, Yorick, Nadia, Yvette, Remy and Jared are committed to leaving the past behind and working together to bring Blumenfeld's life and the vast body of his work to a wider audience.

Please contact us if you have questions about any of the images or information presented here, or if you have information or images of your own that you'd like us to up-load. If you have requests to publish, re-produce or distribute any of his images, please just ask.

The Man Who Shot Beautiful Women (15min clip) by Remy Blumenfeld