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Sigismund Blumann Black and White Photography

American, 1872-1956

Sigismund Blumann 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. 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 were probably his inventions) to create original photographs using chemical processes he invented.

From 1924–33, Blumann edited Camera Craft, the leading West Coast photographic monthly. Subsequently, he established his periodical, Photo Art Monthly, which he published until 1940. In these two magazines — for over 15 years — Blumann found a large audience of mainstream pictorial photographers. Besides, he wrote five instructional books on photography, providing a substantial amount of technical information for committed picture makers. During the 1920s, Blumann also made accomplished pictorial photographs of his own, concentrating on landscape work. In August 1924, Blumann was appointed editor of San Francisco’s Camera Craft (begun in 1900) and, at 52 years of age, began working in photography full time. He continued most of its regular columns, covering professional photographers, camera clubs, technique, and amateur troubles. Blumann was the magazine’s most prolific author during his nine-year tenure, writing nearly 130 signed articles and, presumably, most of the unsigned ones. The magazine included his monthly editorials, reviews of books and exhibitions, and feature articles on the laws of art, different processes, the difficulty of nude subjects, and pictorialists such as Léonard Misonne and William Mortensen. Blumann paid attention to professional photographers by running profiles on them, covering activities of their national and regional organizations, and addressing specific topics like advertising photography. And he consistently maintained a populist and positive attitude, running monthly competitions and including many of his poems. Blumann edited his last issue of Camera Craft in August 1933, but within a few months had started up his periodical, Photo-Art Monthly. With the help of only one assistant, he ran this magazine for the next seven years, carrying a very heavy load of writing and editing. The most notable changes were more attention to "artistic" photography (as suggested by the title), less coverage of professional photography, and increased anti-modernist attitudes.

In 1937, Blumann opened a gallery in the magazine’s offices, providing an exhibition venue unique in the country, where both group and solo shows of about 100 photographs were presented. Somehow Blumann found the time while he was an editor to write five manuals on photographic technique. Camera Craft published the first one in 1927—his Photographic Workroom Handbook, which went into four editions and sold over 60,000 copies. In the 1930s, he self-published a reworking of this title plus books on enlarging, toning and photographic greeting cards. Claiming that his calling was as a critic, Blumann downplayed his ability as a photographer, yet he achieved modest success as a pictorialist. He enjoyed being outdoors with his camera and turned it primarily on the natural environs of Oakland and California’s state parks and national forests. Reproductions of his work appeared in Camera Craft (both before and during his editorship), Photo-Art Monthly, and the American Annual of Photography 1927. In 1933, he was a charter member of the Photographic Society of America and received fellowship status from the Royal Photographic Society (FRPS). Sigismund Blumann’s last known photographic appearance was in the December 1943 issue of Popular Science, for which he wrote an illustrated article on toning black-and-white prints.

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Artist: Sigismund Blumann
Early 20th Century Photograph -- Sidewalk Club of the Motherlode
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 Sigismund Blumann Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, Silver Gelatin

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Portrait
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Portrait, ca. 1975. Period print measuring 8.75 x 11.25 inches. Unframed. Studio stamp on verso. Mounting and framing services available. Victor Arimondi (November 8, 1942 – July 24, 2001) was an Italian American photographer and model who lived and worked in Europe before moving to the United States in the late 1970s. His early fashion photography, his portraits of Grace Jones and other artists, and his male nudes photographed in New York and San Francisco captured the pre-AIDS culture of the 1970s and early 1980s. Arimondi's nudes were collected in several books, including David Leddick's award-winning[1] The Male Nude, (New York: Taschen 1998, 2005 and 2015). The photographer's later work documented homeless individuals in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood and the toll of the AIDS epidemic on the city. His photographs, featured in several posthumous exhibitions, also are in the collections of Sweden's museum of modern art, Moderna Museet, and San Francisco's GLBT Historical Society. Biography Arimondi was born Vittorio Maria Tevitti to his unwed mother, Alessandra Calligaris, in Bologna, Italy on November 8, 1942. His mother struggled financially, which left an impression on her only child. In 1948, she temporarily left him at a children's boarding school and orphanage in Italy to move to Sweden for a job. There she met and married Bruno Arimondi, who adopted her son. The family returned to Naples, Italy in 1952 where Victor graduated from high school.[1] In 1960, Arimondi returned to Sweden to study at the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, although he did not graduate. Meanwhile, he worked at several blue collar jobs, including as a mailman, before he gave up on traditional full-time work to pursue what he considered more essential— a life of creative expression. He created costume-like clothing for himself and friends and at age 19 became a fashion model. Even as a teenager, the Italian born photographer who spent his 20s and 30s primarily based in Sweden, noted that he preferred fantasy to the trials of real life.[1] That conflict, and his passion for beauty as well as his sexual energy, were major factors in his life and his work.[2] From 1965 through 1972 Arimondi worked as model in London, Milan, Germany, New York and Stockholm, appearing in catalogs and fashion magazines including Vogue , Harper's Bazaar and Esquire and on the runway in several Valentino fashion shows. In 1972 he decided to try working on the other side of the lens as a photographer to better express his creativity.[2] Arimondi moved to New York in 1979 and continued to build his photography portfolio. Portrait of Bearded Man, New York City, 1979 Two years later, in 1981, he moved to San Francisco where he lived and worked for twenty years until his death of AIDS at age 58 on July 24, 2001. The year he moved to San Francisco, Arimondi opened a photo gallery in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood for a short time. When he struggled financially, he gave up on trying to earn a living through commercial fashion photography and closed the gallery.[3] Arimondi returned to modeling for the financial benefits, though he did so on less of an international scale than in his early years. He continued to create photographic portraits of the denizens of the San Francisco gay and arts cultures, to shoot male nudes and publish his work in magazines, and he began to compose and photograph evocative still lifes using his own photographic images. Many of them touched on the death of dozens of his former photography models from AIDS. Arimondi was in the midst of a new photography project that brought together his background as a fashion photographer and his more recent social documentary work when he died several months after he learned he was HIV-positive.[4] The project featured his former colleague, haute couture cover model Ivy Nicholson,[5] who he found living homeless in San Francisco. Several of the haunting portraits he took of her were later included in a noted group exhibit at SF Camerawork. Art Arimondi's early photography in the 1970s in Stockholm included portraits of the stars of Sweden's fashion, theater and dance worlds. His first two photography exhibits were in Stockholm and met with mixed reviews. But as he matured as a photographer and tapped into his fashion world contacts, Arimondi landed a number of commercial fashion jobs, including shooting for the Italian designer Salvatore Ferragamo S.p.A.'s I.Magnin department store ad that ran in Vogue. Marlboro Man Nude, New York City,1980. He also shot other artists and models for his own portfolio, including Grace Jones, the Norwegian actress, Liv Ullmann, and the American writer, Norman Mailer. Arimondi's aesthetic vision was focused on fantasy and drama, and he prided himself on pushing limits.[6] Although less well-known than his San Francisco contemporary...
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1970s Realist Sigismund Blumann Black and White Photography

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Photographic Paper

Sigismund Blumann black and white photography for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Sigismund Blumann black and white photography available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Sigismund Blumann in paper, photographic paper, silver gelatin print and more. Not every interior allows for large Sigismund Blumann black and white photography, so small editions measuring 20 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Kind of Cyan, Bob Willoughby, and Tina Modotti. Sigismund Blumann black and white photography prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $575 and tops out at $575, while the average work can sell for $575.

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