“I go on my bicycle or by train out into the environs of Berlin. And if I find an interesting plant then I am obliged for the next three or four months to make virtually daily expeditions to that spot in order to search again and again for that same plant.”
Never formally trained in photography, Blossfeldt made many of his photographs with a camera that he altered to photograph plant surfaces with unprecedented magnification. His pictures achieved notoriety among the artistic avant-garde with the support of gallerist Karl Nierendorf, who mounted a solo show of the pictures paired with African sculptures at his gallery in 1926 and, subsequently, produced this first edition of Blossfeldt’s monograph Urformen der Kunst (Art forms in nature), in 1928.
First edition unbound portfolio comprising original photogravures. 32 x 25 cm.
