By Sigismund Blumann
Located in Soquel, CA
"Sidewalk Club of the Motherlode" a Lithobrome photograh by Sigismund Blumann (American, 1872-1956). Signed "Sigismund Blumann" lower right. Titled "Sidewalk Club of the Motherlode" on verso. Image size, 11.25"H x 13.25"W. Between 1923 and 1932, his pictures were accepted at photographic salons in Amsterdam, Toronto, Rochester, Seattle, and Los Angeles. In 1927, a one-person exhibition of his bromoil prints traveled to camera clubs in Chicago, Akron, Cincinnati, and New York. In addition to bromoil, a process that yields pointillistic images, Blumann utilized such unusual processes as kallitype (Vandyke brown), lithobrome, and pastelograph (the latter two probably his own inventions) to create original photographs using chemical processes he invented.
Sigismund Blumann (1872–1956) (figure 1) was a prominent tastemaker in Californian photography during the 1920s and 1930s. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area for his entire career, he edited magazines, wrote books, and made creative photographs. From 1924 to 1933 Blumann edited Camera Craft, the leading West Coast photographic monthly. Subsequently he established his own periodical, Photo Art Monthly, which he published until 1940. In these two magazines — for over fifteen years — Blumann found a large audience of mainstream pictorial photographers. In addition, he wrote five instructional books on photography...
Category
1920s Realist Samariy Gurariy Art
MaterialsPhotographic Paper, Silver Gelatin