These botanical photogravures by Karl Blossfeldt are as simple and as chic as Irving Penn's Flowers. Invented in 1879, the photogravure technique involved a complex process of photographically transferring an image to a metal plate, etching to the plate and printing from it. Blossfeldt used a home-made camera to photograph these plant forms after years collecting them in Italy, Greece and North Africa. His camera could magnify the image up to thirty times, creating this extraordinary detail with an amazing range of grays and warm blacks. From 1898 to 1931, Blossfeldt was a professor in the sculpture of living plants at the College of Arts + Crafts {Kunstgewerbemuseum} in Berlin, where he incorporated these plant studies into his teaching. Many artists and architects of this period used Blossfeldt's forms to-scale on small ornamental ironworks and for the shapes of entire buildings. I just love these wonderful prints that are for sale here.
