Neckline, Cover Study, New York

Erwin Blumenfeld

Among the most successful photographers of the 20th century, Erwin Blumenfeld brought a radical, avant-garde vision to his work in portraiture, nudes, fashion, and advertising, effectively re-defining the potential of his medium. Though he took his first photographs in 1907, it was not until 1941, after arriving in New York to escape Nazi persecution, that his career took off. Working for the Condé Nast family of publications, most notably Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, he shot fashion spreads and hundreds of covers, which effectively shaped the look of 1940s and ’50s America. Strands of German Expressionism, Dadaism, and Surrealism, movements with which he experimented while in Europe, run throughout Blumenfeld’s work, apparent, for example, in the most famous cover he shot for Vogue, featuring the face of a model pared down to her lips, eye, and a single beauty mark.