Karl Blossfeldt

These are genuine photogravure prints by Karl Blossfeldt who was born in Germany in the mid 19th century. After studying painting and sculpture on a scholarship at the School of the Royal Museum of Arts and Crafts in Berlin from 1884 to 1891, he worked in Italy, Greece, and North Africa collecting plant specimens. From 1898 to 1931 he was a professor in the sculpture of living plants at the Kunstgewerbemuseum (College of Arts and Crafts) in Berlin. In 1899, he began to photograph plant forms with a home made camera. Blossfeldt's photographs were made with a homemade camera that could magnify the subject up to thirty times its actual size. By doing so he revealed extraordinary details within the natural structure of the plants. In the process he created some of the most innovative photographic work of his time. The simple yet expressive forms captured on film affirmed his boundless ability. Indeed, his pictures influenced many architects and artists of his time, who used Blossfeldt's forms on scales as small as ornamental ironwork and as large as the shapes of entire buildings. His most famous work is Urformen der Kunst (Art Forms in Nature).