Blossfeldt, Karl

Karl Blossfeldt is best known for his photographs of plant life, made between the 1890s the 1920s. Originally a sculptor and professor, he had no formal training in photography. Blossfeldt photographed to create studies of natural forms for his students and himself to use as a resource for creating three dimensional forms. His photographs were taken with homemade cameras that had been modified to highly magnify his botanical subjects. Urformen der Kunst (Art Forms in Nature) was originally published in 1928 and contained 120 photogravures of plants and was a limited to 6000 copies. It has since been reproduced in six subsequent editions.