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Blumenbachia hieronymi

1915–25
Not on view
Professor Karl Blossfeldt began his exploration of forms in nature in 1890, but his images were little known before their publication in Urformen der Kunst (Art Forms in Nature) in 1928. The renegade Surrealist writer Georges Bataille was fascinated by the hallucinatory clarity and sinister sexuality of Blossfeldt's plant forms and used several of the photographs to illustrate his essay on the enigmatic "language of flowers" in the first issue of his review Documents in June 1929.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Blumenbachia hieronymi
  • Artist: Karl Blossfeldt (German, 1865–1932)
  • Date: 1915–25
  • Medium: Gelatin silver print
  • Dimensions: Image: 29.8 x 23.8 cm (11 3/4 x 9 3/8 in.)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Gilman Collection, Purchase, Denise and Andrew Saul Gift, 2005
  • Object Number: 2005.100.299
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

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Nigella Damascena Spinnenkopf
Karl Blossfeldt
Jürgen Wilde
ca. 1932, printed 1976
Dipsacus laciniatus (Cutleaf Teasel), Karl Blossfeldt German, Gelatin silver print
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Dipsacus laciniatus (Cutleaf Teasel)
Karl Blossfeldt
1928
Urformen der Kunst: Photographische Pflanzenbilder
Karl Blossfeldt
Ernst Wasmuth
1928
Urformen der Kunst: Photographische Pflanzenbilder
Karl Blossfeldt
E. Wasmuth
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