0:00:04 > 0:00:07BELL TOLLS
0:00:13 > 0:00:15It was on a hot afternoon in Rome.
0:00:15 > 0:00:18And I know that he was on heart tablets
0:00:18 > 0:00:23and, for some reason, he apparently did not take those pills.
0:00:23 > 0:00:25He forced this heart attack on himself.
0:00:28 > 0:00:31Photographer Erwin Blumenfeld is thought to have deliberately
0:00:31 > 0:00:34run up and down Rome's Spanish Steps in the searing heat.
0:00:36 > 0:00:40He didn't want to be taken to hospital,
0:00:40 > 0:00:43and he gradually seemed to lose his breath.
0:00:43 > 0:00:46It was almost as if he choked to death.
0:00:46 > 0:00:50It was clear that this was something he had planned
0:00:50 > 0:00:53and didn't want to be revived.
0:00:54 > 0:00:56It was a suicide, I believe, yes.
0:00:58 > 0:01:02He knew what he was doing, why he was doing it.
0:01:07 > 0:01:09After his mysterious death,
0:01:09 > 0:01:13the man who was once the most highly paid photographer in the world
0:01:13 > 0:01:17left behind a cache of famously iconic images -
0:01:17 > 0:01:18The Doe Eye,
0:01:18 > 0:01:20The Girl On The Eiffel Tower,
0:01:20 > 0:01:22The Girl Behind Wet Silk...
0:01:25 > 0:01:27..and Grace Kelly framed in gold.
0:01:27 > 0:01:30What makes Erwin Blumenfeld stand out for me, as a photographer,
0:01:30 > 0:01:36is his amazing ability to create imagery,
0:01:36 > 0:01:41that when I look at it now, all this time later, 60, 70 years later,
0:01:41 > 0:01:45I look at it, and I go, "I wish I'd done that.
0:01:45 > 0:01:46"I wish I'd taken that."
0:01:48 > 0:01:50Erwin Blumenfeld's obsession
0:01:50 > 0:01:52was with beautiful women.
0:01:54 > 0:01:57He had a way of expressing desire,
0:01:57 > 0:02:00and it's amorphous,
0:02:00 > 0:02:03you know, it's not specific,
0:02:03 > 0:02:05it's a kind of yearning.
0:02:05 > 0:02:09You sense this woman obsession behind the pictures.
0:02:09 > 0:02:11The women seem alive.
0:02:14 > 0:02:17But his fetish for beauty led to a complicated private life
0:02:17 > 0:02:20that would threaten his artistic reputation.
0:02:21 > 0:02:23There were various women,
0:02:23 > 0:02:25there were jealousies, rivalries,
0:02:25 > 0:02:27there were complexities.
0:02:28 > 0:02:32The women in Blumenfeld's life failed to work together
0:02:32 > 0:02:34to curate his legacy -
0:02:34 > 0:02:3830,000 negatives, 8,000 black-and-white prints,
0:02:38 > 0:02:40and dozens of fashion films.
0:02:43 > 0:02:47To this day, much of his work has never been seen by the public.
0:02:50 > 0:02:53This is the family legacy -
0:02:53 > 0:02:58destroy, destruct, separate and divide.
0:03:00 > 0:03:01At the peak of his career,
0:03:01 > 0:03:05he took hundreds of covers for Harper's Bazaar and Vogue.
0:03:05 > 0:03:08So what happened to Erwin Blumenfeld?
0:03:21 > 0:03:25Blumenfeld's rise to photographic stardom has been meteoric.
0:03:25 > 0:03:28He has startled the photographic world with his achievements
0:03:28 > 0:03:29and innovations.
0:03:29 > 0:03:34In 1935, he was the proprietor of a leather goods store in Amsterdam,
0:03:34 > 0:03:37and in just nine years, without benefit of formal instruction,
0:03:37 > 0:03:41this unknown amateur has become the world's most famous
0:03:41 > 0:03:44and most highly-paid professional photographer.
0:03:44 > 0:03:46Today, his work leads the field.
0:03:48 > 0:03:54In 1941, Erwin Blumenfeld, a German Jew escaping from the Nazis,
0:03:54 > 0:03:57arrived with his family in New York with one suitcase.
0:03:58 > 0:04:00Already 44 years old,
0:04:00 > 0:04:04he had not yet earned a living as a professional photographer.
0:04:04 > 0:04:08Yet, he would soon be shaping the way America saw itself.
0:04:10 > 0:04:16He defined the way that we think of the '40s and '50s.
0:04:16 > 0:04:21Not necessarily how the '40s and '50s looked, but how we think it looked.
0:04:21 > 0:04:25And I think that that's what makes him a great photographer,
0:04:25 > 0:04:30because if you define an age, visually, for the rest of time,
0:04:30 > 0:04:33then you've created something amazing.
0:04:33 > 0:04:38The USA in the post-war years felt it was on top of the world -
0:04:38 > 0:04:41and who better to define what it meant to be an American,
0:04:41 > 0:04:45than an emigre who described himself as "un-American for ever"?
0:04:47 > 0:04:51He brought an outsider's eye and the sensibility of a European artist.
0:04:52 > 0:04:57He's not constrained by his commercial role.
0:04:57 > 0:05:00There's an absolutely brilliant Vogue cover -
0:05:00 > 0:05:04he's cut out the shadow underneath a hat, to make something
0:05:04 > 0:05:06which looks like the military beret,
0:05:06 > 0:05:09and the lipstick is simply a dash of bright purple colour
0:05:09 > 0:05:11added on to a black-and-white print.
0:05:11 > 0:05:16Have a look at something which is as expressive as you can be
0:05:16 > 0:05:18and still have your art directors
0:05:18 > 0:05:20allow it to go forward.
0:05:20 > 0:05:24Blumenfeld always referred to art directors as "arse" directors,
0:05:24 > 0:05:28yet despite his contempt for them, such was his talent,
0:05:28 > 0:05:31that for 20 years, they kept coming back for more.
0:05:33 > 0:05:36They respond to quality, right?
0:05:36 > 0:05:38So Blumenfeld consistently delivered.
0:05:38 > 0:05:43He had a unique voice and vision in his photography
0:05:43 > 0:05:46that other photographers, his contemporaries, didn't have.
0:05:46 > 0:05:54# I'd love to gain complete control of you
0:05:54 > 0:06:00# And handle even the heart and soul of you
0:06:00 > 0:06:07# So love at least a small percent of me, do
0:06:07 > 0:06:13# For I love all of you. #
0:06:21 > 0:06:24Surrounded by the beautiful women he photographed,
0:06:24 > 0:06:27with a Manhattan apartment and a beach house in the Hamptons,
0:06:27 > 0:06:29he could hardly believe his luck.
0:06:32 > 0:06:35Blumenfeld had quite simply re-invented the fashion shoot
0:06:35 > 0:06:39by understanding it was about creating icons.
0:06:41 > 0:06:47This here is arguably not only Blumenfeld's best cover,
0:06:47 > 0:06:50but one of the most iconic covers in Vogue's history.
0:06:50 > 0:06:52My eye and my mole, which is
0:06:52 > 0:06:54on the right side of my face,
0:06:54 > 0:06:55is my trademark.
0:06:57 > 0:07:00It's practically the only way my mother can recognise me!
0:07:01 > 0:07:04- Listen, Ed, I have something to show you.- Good.
0:07:06 > 0:07:09Look what someone has commercialised...
0:07:10 > 0:07:13- Pyjamas!- Yes,
0:07:13 > 0:07:16the pyjamas with the eye and the mouth.
0:07:16 > 0:07:19'It was kind of like the advent of a new age.
0:07:19 > 0:07:20'It was a really important time,
0:07:20 > 0:07:25'and they'd chosen him to take this photograph, and it had a surrealist
0:07:25 > 0:07:28'quality to it, but at the same time it really was a beauty image.'
0:07:28 > 0:07:33And, as a beauty image, it's been ripped off and copied by
0:07:33 > 0:07:37so many other photographers through time.
0:07:37 > 0:07:41I wanted to take that picture which you see so many times,
0:07:41 > 0:07:44done by so many people in so many different ways, shapes and forms,
0:07:44 > 0:07:47and say, "What if that picture came alive?"
0:07:56 > 0:08:02# I get high on a buzz, then a rush When I'm plugged in you... #
0:08:02 > 0:08:05He completely changed the rules of photography
0:08:05 > 0:08:10and opened it up to what it is today for many, many photographers.
0:08:10 > 0:08:14I think one of the main things that he did for photography,
0:08:14 > 0:08:17that lasts to today, is the fact that he took the rulebook
0:08:17 > 0:08:20and he threw it firmly out of the window.
0:08:20 > 0:08:24Here's a classic Blumenfeld. I mean, look at all that white space.
0:08:24 > 0:08:26You'd never see that on a magazine cover now.
0:08:26 > 0:08:31Very simple headlines and cover lines, simple image,
0:08:31 > 0:08:35beautiful use of colour, that's a classic look from him.
0:08:38 > 0:08:42Throughout the '40s and '50s, his double-height studio
0:08:42 > 0:08:46at 222 Central Park South was where he shot and later hand-printed
0:08:46 > 0:08:50the thousands of covers and advertisements that made his name.
0:08:52 > 0:08:57It was here that Blumenfeld courted not one but two cosmetic queens -
0:08:57 > 0:09:00Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein.
0:09:00 > 0:09:03He would shoot campaigns for both of them.
0:09:03 > 0:09:06Bette Davis posed for him, so did Lucille Ball.
0:09:08 > 0:09:11By the time Marlene Dietrich met Blumenfeld,
0:09:11 > 0:09:13her stardom was tarnished.
0:09:13 > 0:09:15She hoped that having Blumenfeld take her portrait
0:09:15 > 0:09:17might help her career as it had others.
0:09:17 > 0:09:19It didn't work.
0:09:21 > 0:09:25This early image of a 23-year-old Audrey Hepburn
0:09:25 > 0:09:27was shot in 1952.
0:09:29 > 0:09:31Grace Kelly came into Blumenfeld's studio
0:09:31 > 0:09:33the year she filmed To Catch A Thief.
0:09:35 > 0:09:39Movie stars, singers, society ladies and top models
0:09:39 > 0:09:41all wanted to be shot by him.
0:09:43 > 0:09:46I use a trick to soften the mother's face
0:09:46 > 0:09:48just before photographing her.
0:09:48 > 0:09:51I ask her, "Will you marry me?"
0:09:52 > 0:09:56It's the one formula that makes the American female tick.
0:09:57 > 0:10:01# The look of love
0:10:01 > 0:10:06# Is in your eyes
0:10:06 > 0:10:13# The look your smile can disguise
0:10:14 > 0:10:20# The look of love
0:10:20 > 0:10:27# Is saying so much more than these words could ever say... #
0:10:30 > 0:10:34But even in his hey-day, Blumenfeld was never seduced by fame.
0:10:35 > 0:10:38His pre-occupation was always with what was going on
0:10:38 > 0:10:40under the surface.
0:10:41 > 0:10:42It was multifaceted.
0:10:42 > 0:10:44Some of it was very, very beautiful,
0:10:44 > 0:10:49and I guess he was trying to create his perfect woman, his ideal woman
0:10:49 > 0:10:53in certain times, and in some ways, it was very, very, very dark.
0:10:55 > 0:10:58If this was a man, he would look really threatening.
0:10:58 > 0:11:02I mean, this woman looks dangerous. You know, she looks really strong.
0:11:02 > 0:11:07She's smiling, but her eyes are that of a demon tiger or
0:11:07 > 0:11:11a demon panther, and she looks like you should avoid her at all costs.
0:11:13 > 0:11:16He talked about psychological portraiture at one point.
0:11:16 > 0:11:19He used that phrase, psychological portraiture,
0:11:19 > 0:11:25as a way of uncovering the reality under the surface.
0:11:25 > 0:11:27And I think that's what, really, we have to deal with here.
0:11:27 > 0:11:32It was about women, largely. It was an obsession with women.
0:11:32 > 0:11:34He says, several times,
0:11:34 > 0:11:37"I could never really love a single woman, I loved women."
0:11:37 > 0:11:42I did uncover, in my research, this amazing negative of him
0:11:42 > 0:11:45giving birth to a woman.
0:11:45 > 0:11:47He is in the birthing position
0:11:47 > 0:11:50and this mannequin is arriving in the world.
0:11:52 > 0:11:56Some of Blumenfeld's most memorable psychological portraits are of
0:11:56 > 0:12:02himself - a sitter with whom he had the most complex of relationships.
0:12:02 > 0:12:05For all his life, he remembered someone telling him
0:12:05 > 0:12:10as a very young person that he was ugly, and that upset him.
0:12:10 > 0:12:13I thought he looked lovely, but that maybe my prejudice.
0:12:14 > 0:12:18Even today, I remain convinced there's a life in another world
0:12:18 > 0:12:23going on behind the transparent glass. We are doubles.
0:12:23 > 0:12:27Without the mirror, I would never have become a human being.
0:12:27 > 0:12:30Only fools call it a narcissist complex.
0:12:30 > 0:12:34No mirror, no art, no echo, no music.
0:12:53 > 0:12:56It's clear from the self portraits that he many times
0:12:56 > 0:13:00photographed himself with masks, with paper bags on his head,
0:13:00 > 0:13:04with screens in front of his face, with photographic masking,
0:13:04 > 0:13:06if it wasn't physical masking.
0:13:06 > 0:13:09He often photographed himself,
0:13:09 > 0:13:14and I have a feeling that there is a lifelong search
0:13:14 > 0:13:16in the self portraits
0:13:16 > 0:13:18to battle out the things that he could not battle out
0:13:18 > 0:13:20working for commercial clients.
0:13:20 > 0:13:24He was dealing with the complexity of his identity,
0:13:24 > 0:13:25in such a vulnerable way.
0:13:25 > 0:13:28People shy away from that kind of
0:13:28 > 0:13:31psychological aspect,
0:13:31 > 0:13:34or did during that period.
0:13:39 > 0:13:42Even at the very height of Blumenfeld's career in New York,
0:13:42 > 0:13:47the demons that haunted him were never far away.
0:13:47 > 0:13:50Blumenfeld's complexity as an artist can be traced back
0:13:50 > 0:13:53to his earliest childhood in Berlin.
0:13:53 > 0:14:00Whatever the precise details on 5 May 1896 at the midnight hour,
0:14:00 > 0:14:06I was unceremoniously thrust into my first concentration camp -
0:14:06 > 0:14:10doubled up and tethered in solitary confinement for nine months
0:14:10 > 0:14:14and condemned to death under the most inhumane living conditions.
0:14:14 > 0:14:17I began learning how to die.
0:14:17 > 0:14:19I think to be a Berlin Jew says a lot of things.
0:14:19 > 0:14:21Berlin at the end of the 19th century,
0:14:21 > 0:14:25beginning of the 20th century, is a melting pot,
0:14:25 > 0:14:29is like an exuberant place, there's lots of artists,
0:14:29 > 0:14:34lots of things going on, and being a Jew in Berlin,
0:14:34 > 0:14:40as the history will show us later in time, it's never an easy thing.
0:14:40 > 0:14:43You're always the marginal, always an outsider.
0:14:44 > 0:14:48There was always a lot of anti-Semitism,
0:14:48 > 0:14:53but there was a very big Jewish population in Berlin.
0:14:53 > 0:14:57For instance, the whole cloth trade was in Jewish hands,
0:14:57 > 0:15:02as was Erwin Blumenthal's father, who was an umbrella producer.
0:15:05 > 0:15:09He grew up in a middle-class home, where the artistic influences
0:15:09 > 0:15:12reflected the cultural changes in Berlin at the time.
0:15:14 > 0:15:17What drove me to the arts?
0:15:17 > 0:15:19Sex drove me.
0:15:20 > 0:15:26I drew my first visual stimulation from Papa's satirical magazines.
0:15:26 > 0:15:29My auto-erotic programme was determined by the weekly appearance
0:15:29 > 0:15:34of the charms of the same demimondaines in lace panties.
0:15:34 > 0:15:36At the same time, I was being prepared for my career
0:15:36 > 0:15:38in the women's garment trade.
0:15:40 > 0:15:43Blumenfeld's fascination with the possibility of photography
0:15:43 > 0:15:46went back to his childhood years,
0:15:46 > 0:15:51when, aged ten, a generous uncle gave him his first camera.
0:15:51 > 0:15:55Aged 13, he would take this self-portrait as Pierrot,
0:15:55 > 0:15:59using a mirror to obtain both front and profile views.
0:15:59 > 0:16:02He would develop his own photographs in the bathroom
0:16:02 > 0:16:06and he also used quite a few of his early photographs,
0:16:06 > 0:16:09very early photographs, in his early collage.
0:16:09 > 0:16:12But Blumenfeld's early experiments in photographic collages
0:16:12 > 0:16:15were interrupted by world events.
0:16:19 > 0:16:23'Some of these men will stay four years in this earth,
0:16:23 > 0:16:25'many will remain here for ever.'
0:16:30 > 0:16:34At the outbreak of the First World War, Erwin Blumenfeld
0:16:34 > 0:16:37drove an ambulance for the German Army,
0:16:37 > 0:16:40despite not ever having learned to drive.
0:16:41 > 0:16:45One of his duties involved keeping a ledger in a field brothel,
0:16:45 > 0:16:48run by the German army.
0:16:48 > 0:16:50He found the war horrific,
0:16:50 > 0:16:53but another threat lay much closer to home.
0:16:55 > 0:17:00When Erwin Blumenfeld leaked to his mother that he wanted to
0:17:00 > 0:17:05desert from the Army, from war, in 1918, she immediately
0:17:05 > 0:17:10contacted her brother, who was a German nationalist,
0:17:10 > 0:17:13and her brother reported him to the police,
0:17:13 > 0:17:15which could have meant his death.
0:17:15 > 0:17:18Fortunately, they couldn't find any proof of the fact
0:17:18 > 0:17:21that he wanted to desert from the Army,
0:17:21 > 0:17:24and so he had to go back to war in the north of France.
0:17:24 > 0:17:29But she said, "Better to have a dead child than a traitor."
0:17:30 > 0:17:34Before the war was over, Blumenfeld would be awarded an Iron Cross,
0:17:34 > 0:17:37though not, in his case, for valour.
0:17:37 > 0:17:43His company commander wanted to learn French, and my father was
0:17:43 > 0:17:47able to teach him the fundamentals of the French language,
0:17:47 > 0:17:51and this is why he got an Iron Cross, which he was very proud of
0:17:51 > 0:17:53because he thought it was so ridiculous.
0:17:53 > 0:17:56Having eventually deserted from the German army -
0:17:56 > 0:17:58without his mother's knowledge -
0:17:58 > 0:18:02Blumenfeld would be told that his brother and best friend, Heinz,
0:18:02 > 0:18:05had been killed in battle, aged 19.
0:18:06 > 0:18:10With the life he had known in Berlin destroyed by war,
0:18:10 > 0:18:13Blumenfeld found himself drawn to the avant-garde artists
0:18:13 > 0:18:15who were congregating in the city.
0:18:16 > 0:18:21One night, I went in mellow mood to the urinal on Potsdamer Platz.
0:18:22 > 0:18:26A young dandy came in by the opposite entrance, stood beside me,
0:18:26 > 0:18:31fixed his monocle in his eye and, in one fell swoop,
0:18:31 > 0:18:34pissed my profile on the wall so masterfully
0:18:34 > 0:18:37that I could not but cry out in admiration.
0:18:37 > 0:18:40We became great friends.
0:18:40 > 0:18:43He was the most brilliant and man I ever met in all my life.
0:18:43 > 0:18:48A great raconteur and an immensely powerful draughtsmen.
0:18:48 > 0:18:49It was George Grosz.
0:18:51 > 0:18:55George Grosz was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada group
0:18:55 > 0:18:57during the Weimar Republic,
0:18:57 > 0:19:00best known for his savage caricatures
0:19:00 > 0:19:02of German life in the 1920s.
0:19:02 > 0:19:05The two were to become fast friends.
0:19:05 > 0:19:10For many years, these early Dada collages that Blumenfeld made
0:19:10 > 0:19:12were kept hidden from public view.
0:19:12 > 0:19:17He emerged out of that post- First World War moment
0:19:17 > 0:19:22when Dadaism crystallised -
0:19:22 > 0:19:26highly politicised, artists, anarchists,
0:19:26 > 0:19:29they kind of tend to be one and the same,
0:19:29 > 0:19:32questioning, challenging what society was,
0:19:32 > 0:19:39what it should be. He responded to that through his work,
0:19:39 > 0:19:42which involved photographic collages,
0:19:42 > 0:19:46reinventing how one might piece together a photograph
0:19:46 > 0:19:48that was also a political statement.
0:19:48 > 0:19:54Looking at the body of collages from 1916 to 1933,
0:19:54 > 0:19:56I consider them to be very important.
0:19:56 > 0:19:59You can read his collage a bit like you can read a book.
0:19:59 > 0:20:04Could be also like a book cover or like a magazine cover,
0:20:04 > 0:20:08and it's quite extraordinary to think that some of them look like
0:20:08 > 0:20:13magazine covers and, later on, he did these hundreds of covers for Vogue.
0:20:22 > 0:20:24# I found my new love
0:20:24 > 0:20:29# He's got the intellect Yes, he's got the mind of
0:20:29 > 0:20:32# A great philosopher or artist
0:20:32 > 0:20:36# So sure of his place in history
0:20:36 > 0:20:38# He's a mystery
0:20:38 > 0:20:43# La-da-da La-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. #
0:20:43 > 0:20:47Blumenfeld continued experimenting with his collage at a time
0:20:47 > 0:20:51long before photography was even accepted as an art form.
0:20:51 > 0:20:56Thinking back to the situation of photography in the 1920s,
0:20:56 > 0:20:58I think it would probably be true to say
0:20:58 > 0:21:02that most professional photographers were really glorified tradesmen.
0:21:02 > 0:21:05It was hardly a profession that attracted somebody
0:21:05 > 0:21:08of high artistic ambition
0:21:08 > 0:21:13or with a powerful desire to express themselves.
0:21:13 > 0:21:18What I really wanted to be was a photographer, pure and simple,
0:21:18 > 0:21:21dedicated to his art for art's sake alone.
0:21:21 > 0:21:23A denizen of the new world,
0:21:23 > 0:21:27as the American Jew, Man Ray, had triumphantly discovered.
0:21:27 > 0:21:30# Maybe one day he'll meet me
0:21:30 > 0:21:35# And I just know that I'll be tempted completely
0:21:35 > 0:21:40# How could I ever let him know my devotion?
0:21:40 > 0:21:43# It's such a shame
0:21:43 > 0:21:46# He knows how to do everything
0:21:46 > 0:21:48# But love me. #
0:21:50 > 0:21:55As a young man, Erwin Blumenfeld felt very alone in the world.
0:21:55 > 0:21:58He'd begun writing letters to a Dutch girl
0:21:58 > 0:22:00who was the cousin of a friend.
0:22:00 > 0:22:05Her name was Lena Citroen. They shared their deepest secrets.
0:22:05 > 0:22:08By the time the pair finally met in Amsterdam,
0:22:08 > 0:22:12they were already in love, and soon became engaged.
0:22:12 > 0:22:16They were extremely close, I think, during those years,
0:22:16 > 0:22:19on a whole range of levels.
0:22:19 > 0:22:23She was very interested in psychology and her interests are to start
0:22:23 > 0:22:27reading Freud and that had a tremendous impact on him.
0:22:27 > 0:22:32In terms of literature, she was a very literate person
0:22:32 > 0:22:37and he loved reading, and so there was that communion between them
0:22:37 > 0:22:39at a literary level as well.
0:22:39 > 0:22:42# I saw the splendour of the moonlight
0:22:42 > 0:22:47# On Honolulu Bay. #
0:22:47 > 0:22:50In 1920, Erwin Blumenfeld -
0:22:50 > 0:22:54occasional painter, avid photographer and Dadaist -
0:22:54 > 0:22:58moved to Amsterdam to be with Lena, who he married.
0:22:58 > 0:23:01Two years later, with a baby daughter to feed,
0:23:01 > 0:23:05he decided to go into business selling handbags.
0:23:05 > 0:23:09He was now the unlikely proprietor of a leather goods store.
0:23:12 > 0:23:18# If you like a ukelele lady... #
0:23:18 > 0:23:20A surprise discovery above the store
0:23:20 > 0:23:24was to change the entire course of Blumenfeld's life.
0:23:26 > 0:23:29When he discovered a dark room on the second floor
0:23:29 > 0:23:33of the Fox Leather Company, he decided to try to see
0:23:33 > 0:23:38if he could take pictures of some of the attractive women who came in,
0:23:38 > 0:23:42and then would put the images in the window shop,
0:23:42 > 0:23:45and that would attract other women, not only to the leather goods
0:23:45 > 0:23:50but also to the photographs, and so pretty soon the photographs are
0:23:50 > 0:23:54more popular than the leather goods, and that's how things developed.
0:23:54 > 0:24:00Only gradually did he shift it to taking more relaxed poses,
0:24:00 > 0:24:02and eventually he did some nudes as well.
0:24:02 > 0:24:06I think my mother didn't mind at all, him taking pictures of nude women.
0:24:06 > 0:24:08# Sometimes when you talk
0:24:09 > 0:24:11# Mmm...
0:24:11 > 0:24:16# And I'm your Betty Blue and we're singing it close
0:24:17 > 0:24:19# Like...
0:24:19 > 0:24:23# The girls in Belleville Rendez-Vouz
0:24:23 > 0:24:25# I wish...
0:24:25 > 0:24:27# That we...
0:24:27 > 0:24:30# Could somehow freeze the frame
0:24:30 > 0:24:35# But this isn't the silver screen
0:24:35 > 0:24:37# No... #
0:24:37 > 0:24:39He wasn't just interested
0:24:39 > 0:24:42in making beautiful pictures of beautiful women,
0:24:42 > 0:24:46I think he was always trying to get beyond.
0:24:46 > 0:24:49Those pictures are really quite amazing.
0:24:49 > 0:24:52They don't date. It's because they're not objectified.
0:24:52 > 0:24:56It's because obviously he was interested in them
0:24:56 > 0:24:58as complex social beings.
0:24:58 > 0:25:02I won't say just women, but as complex social beings.
0:25:04 > 0:25:10In Amsterdam, he shot a photograph of a very black man
0:25:10 > 0:25:11with a very, very white woman.
0:25:12 > 0:25:17In 1942, Blumenfeld would shoot the Native American actress
0:25:17 > 0:25:20Burnu Acquanetta in Life Magazine.
0:25:20 > 0:25:25Later, in 1958, he would photograph Bani Yelverton,
0:25:25 > 0:25:29the first black model to participate in an American fashion show.
0:25:29 > 0:25:33He was instructed to place her on the far right of the fold-out
0:25:33 > 0:25:37so she could be easily removed or torn out of the magazine
0:25:37 > 0:25:41by readers who reacted badly to this kind of audacity.
0:25:44 > 0:25:48In Amsterdam in 1936, Blumenfeld's leather store
0:25:48 > 0:25:54went out of business, but not before he took one key portrait.
0:25:54 > 0:25:56The sitter was Genevieve Rouault.
0:25:57 > 0:26:00Genevieve was a Paris dentist,
0:26:00 > 0:26:04and the daughter of a well-known painter, George Rouault.
0:26:04 > 0:26:07She offered to exhibit Blumenfeld's photographs in her Paris
0:26:07 > 0:26:11waiting room, and promised to introduce him to famous sitters,
0:26:11 > 0:26:16such as her artist father and his friend, Henri Matisse.
0:26:18 > 0:26:21Blumenfeld left Holland and took a train to Paris
0:26:21 > 0:26:24with the aim of becoming a professional photographer.
0:26:34 > 0:26:37With money lent to Blumenfeld by a family friend,
0:26:37 > 0:26:41he rented a studio here at 9 rue Delambre.
0:26:43 > 0:26:48When Genevieve Rouault let him have a show in her waiting room,
0:26:48 > 0:26:52he didn't make any money off of it. People would...
0:26:52 > 0:26:58Matisse said, "You can come to my studio and I'll give you a picture
0:26:58 > 0:27:00"and you give me a picture,"
0:27:00 > 0:27:05and then Matisse chose this portrait that Blumenfeld had taken of him
0:27:05 > 0:27:09and kept one and then he said, "Which one of mine do you like?"
0:27:09 > 0:27:13and Blumenfeld picked some drawing and was thrilled to death,
0:27:13 > 0:27:17and then Matisse said, "Yes, I agree," and put it in his drawer.
0:27:17 > 0:27:23He didn't pay for the portrait and nobody paid Blumenfeld in those days.
0:27:23 > 0:27:27But he was making his name as best he could.
0:27:27 > 0:27:30And Blumenfeld was finally published.
0:27:30 > 0:27:32The first editions of Verve Magazine
0:27:32 > 0:27:38showcased 17 groundbreaking photographs by Erwin Blumenfeld.
0:27:38 > 0:27:42Double exposures, triple exposures, done in the camera,
0:27:42 > 0:27:48done in the dark room, solarisations, high-contrast printing.
0:27:48 > 0:27:51We know he didn't respect rules.
0:27:51 > 0:27:55He was very proud of saying if the instruction for the new film
0:27:55 > 0:28:00said "never heat it more than above room temperature," he would boil it.
0:28:00 > 0:28:03If it said "never let it go below room temperature,"
0:28:03 > 0:28:05he'd throw it in the freezer,
0:28:05 > 0:28:08and then you'd get these strange effects on the surface.
0:28:08 > 0:28:14Kind of reticulation, granular structures, sort of liquid feels.
0:28:15 > 0:28:18These vintage black-and-white prints from the '30s
0:28:18 > 0:28:21are what he considered to be his best work.
0:28:21 > 0:28:24Many of these are the pictures that he chose for his book,
0:28:24 > 0:28:26My Hundred Best Photographs.
0:28:50 > 0:28:55In 1938, Blumenfeld's Paris studio received a chance visit
0:28:55 > 0:28:58from a stranger cloaked in black.
0:28:58 > 0:29:01Cecil Beaton, the British photographer,
0:29:01 > 0:29:06had seen Erwin Blumenfeld's early experimental pictures in Verve,
0:29:06 > 0:29:08and was impressed by their originality.
0:29:08 > 0:29:11He wanted to meet their maker.
0:29:11 > 0:29:15Here, at last, is someone who is not in any influenced
0:29:15 > 0:29:17by the work of other photographers.
0:29:17 > 0:29:19Here is a fresh and clear mind.
0:29:19 > 0:29:22It seemed to be wrong and disgraceful
0:29:22 > 0:29:25that his photographs never fetched much money.
0:29:25 > 0:29:29That, with two children to support, he should remain so poor.
0:29:29 > 0:29:31But his merit as an artist lies in the fact
0:29:31 > 0:29:34that he is incapable of compromise,
0:29:34 > 0:29:37and though I would like him to work for Vogue,
0:29:37 > 0:29:40his pictures are not of Vogue quality,
0:29:40 > 0:29:45for they are much more serious, too provoking and better than fashion.
0:29:46 > 0:29:51But Cecil Beaton did introduce Blumenfeld to Vogue and, in 1939,
0:29:51 > 0:29:56the magazine was to give him two big fashion spreads, Blumenfeld's first.
0:30:01 > 0:30:04WOMAN SINGS IN FRENCH
0:30:08 > 0:30:14Paris in the 1920s and 1930s obviously is a very exciting place.
0:30:14 > 0:30:19No need to go into the theatre, the music, the jazz, the art.
0:30:19 > 0:30:24I mean, it's a really thriving, incredible place to be.
0:30:24 > 0:30:28For fashion, it's particularly extraordinary
0:30:28 > 0:30:31and spectacular for many reasons.
0:30:31 > 0:30:34Obviously, you know, the corsetry has disappeared,
0:30:34 > 0:30:36women's bodies are now free.
0:30:37 > 0:30:40There's quite a libertarian point of view
0:30:40 > 0:30:45where women can express themselves quite differently.
0:30:45 > 0:30:47What he was doing, really...
0:30:47 > 0:30:50It's totally revolutionary,
0:30:50 > 0:30:52the way he worked with the models like that,
0:30:52 > 0:30:54in the way that the model looks through the camera, the way that
0:30:54 > 0:30:59they connect with the photographer, and it's a unique way of working.
0:30:59 > 0:31:03It actually sort of says more about him as a person, I think,
0:31:03 > 0:31:06than just as a photographer. Up to that point, I think
0:31:06 > 0:31:09most photographers treated models almost like mannequins.
0:31:09 > 0:31:12You see in his images, they're free.
0:31:13 > 0:31:17Working as Vogue's Paris features editor was a young writer
0:31:17 > 0:31:20named Rosamond Bernier.
0:31:20 > 0:31:23Vogue assigned me Blumenfeld.
0:31:23 > 0:31:25I'd never met him.
0:31:25 > 0:31:28They announced bravely, inaccurately,
0:31:28 > 0:31:32"Blumenfeld is re-reading Proust with this job,"
0:31:32 > 0:31:34and he roared with laughter.
0:31:34 > 0:31:36He'd never opened a page of Proust.
0:31:36 > 0:31:42So I met this very amiable man, and we got along like a house on fire.
0:31:42 > 0:31:45He was such fun. He had a sense of humour.
0:31:45 > 0:31:49He was totally unpretentious, totally flexible.
0:31:49 > 0:31:51"Shall we do this?" "Why not? Off we go."
0:31:51 > 0:31:55So, at six in the morning, Blumenfeld came to wake me up,
0:31:55 > 0:31:58and there was no question of taking a suitcase and nightgown,
0:31:58 > 0:32:00I was just in my underwear.
0:32:00 > 0:32:04And so he laughed and took that picture.
0:32:04 > 0:32:07Although he spent his days photographing women,
0:32:07 > 0:32:10Blumenfeld was never afraid to celebrate the sexual ambiguity
0:32:10 > 0:32:14in himself, as in this self-portrait.
0:32:14 > 0:32:18It was an urge that spilled over into real life.
0:32:18 > 0:32:22I think that he felt attracted to certain men like Cecil Beaton.
0:32:22 > 0:32:28As he said very proudly, "I was always a virgin from the rear end."
0:32:28 > 0:32:32His rear end was virginal but, other than that,
0:32:32 > 0:32:36he had no particular feelings about, er...
0:32:36 > 0:32:40having oral contact with various people.
0:32:40 > 0:32:45There were rumours that he had some kind of relationship with Cary Grant
0:32:45 > 0:32:48and, as far as I'm concerned, it was all possible.
0:32:54 > 0:32:58I think through the first photos he did in Paris and in the late '30s,
0:32:58 > 0:33:01you could really feel and incredible excitement
0:33:01 > 0:33:03on his behalf already.
0:33:03 > 0:33:05Finding himself finally in Paris,
0:33:05 > 0:33:09finally commissioned to do this work,
0:33:09 > 0:33:14I think was, for him, already really incredibly exciting,
0:33:14 > 0:33:16and you can feel that in the pictures.
0:33:16 > 0:33:20It's kind of like when the sun comes out and the rays come up
0:33:20 > 0:33:22and you're almost blinded.
0:33:32 > 0:33:34His pictures were daring.
0:33:34 > 0:33:37There is a no more daring shot, perhaps, that exists
0:33:37 > 0:33:42in the history of fashion photography than the girl on the Eiffel Tower.
0:33:42 > 0:33:45What he did and why he's so important is this enormous
0:33:45 > 0:33:52breadth of desire and technique and audacity and really...
0:33:52 > 0:33:56I mean, it's hard to see it now in the way it must have been seen
0:33:56 > 0:34:00at the time but the cutting-edge-ness of Erwin Blumenfeld's work,
0:34:00 > 0:34:03at that time, must have been fairly incredible.
0:34:16 > 0:34:19With money from his first spreads in Vogue,
0:34:19 > 0:34:22Blumenfeld's wife, Lene, and their three children -
0:34:22 > 0:34:24Lisette, Henry and Yorick -
0:34:24 > 0:34:27were able to join Erwin in Paris from Holland.
0:34:28 > 0:34:32Still desperately poor, the family was happily all together again.
0:34:32 > 0:34:34It wasn't to last.
0:34:42 > 0:34:46When the Second World War was declared in 1939,
0:34:46 > 0:34:49Blumenfeld, a Jew in Paris with a German passport,
0:34:49 > 0:34:53was all the wrong things in all the wrong places.
0:34:54 > 0:34:56Fearing what might befall him,
0:34:56 > 0:34:59on the 4th of September, when war had already broken out,
0:34:59 > 0:35:03he put all of his photographs - including his glass plates -
0:35:03 > 0:35:07into two huge suitcases and took them in the Dome cafe.
0:35:07 > 0:35:10Here, completely by chance,
0:35:10 > 0:35:13he met a young woman who was pushing a trolley.
0:35:13 > 0:35:17He said to her, "Look, do you think you could take my pictures
0:35:17 > 0:35:21"and keep them for me until, you know, things change?"
0:35:21 > 0:35:23And after the war in 1947,
0:35:23 > 0:35:27when he went back, he found them and she had kept them all intact.
0:35:28 > 0:35:33Within months, all of Blumenfeld's worst nightmares came true.
0:35:34 > 0:35:37His wife and sons were classified as Dutch
0:35:37 > 0:35:40and therefore seen as Allied citizens.
0:35:41 > 0:35:45But Blumenfeld and his daughter, Lisette, now 18,
0:35:45 > 0:35:49despite being Jewish, were both classed as German
0:35:49 > 0:35:52and sent to two different internment camps.
0:35:54 > 0:35:57Blumenfeld was sent to Le Vernet.
0:36:03 > 0:36:07In a bizarre twist, although he was interned by the French
0:36:07 > 0:36:11for being German, these haunting photomontages that Blumenfeld
0:36:11 > 0:36:15created of Adolf Hitler in the '30s were later dropped over Germany
0:36:15 > 0:36:21by the Allied forces during the war as anti-German propaganda.
0:36:21 > 0:36:24# The last time I saw Paris
0:36:24 > 0:36:27# Her trees were dressed for spring
0:36:27 > 0:36:31# And lovers walked beneath those trees
0:36:31 > 0:36:35# And birds found songs to sing... #
0:36:35 > 0:36:38Only after Vichy France surrendered to the Germans
0:36:38 > 0:36:43was Erwin Blumenfeld released and the family finally reunited.
0:36:43 > 0:36:45# ..their squeaky horns
0:36:45 > 0:36:50# Was music to my ears... #
0:36:50 > 0:36:52When I first saw my father, I was absolutely horrified
0:36:52 > 0:36:54because his hair had been shaven off.
0:36:54 > 0:36:58He looked like a semi-skeleton because the food had been terrible
0:36:58 > 0:37:01and he hadn't been able to sleep very well there at all
0:37:01 > 0:37:05and it was really a sort of nightmare experience for him.
0:37:05 > 0:37:06We all found each other.
0:37:06 > 0:37:09We all got together and, for a whole year, we waited.
0:37:09 > 0:37:13My father managed to get visas to the United States
0:37:13 > 0:37:19and after three months travelling from Marseille to Casablanca
0:37:19 > 0:37:21we finally arrived in New York City.
0:37:32 > 0:37:35Three days after arriving in Manhattan,
0:37:35 > 0:37:36Blumenfeld bought a new suit
0:37:36 > 0:37:41and went to see Carmel Snow, the editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar,
0:37:41 > 0:37:44which was the leading fashion magazine of the day.
0:37:44 > 0:37:49Without getting up, without looking up, "Blumenfeld! Talk of the devil!
0:37:49 > 0:37:51"Two of Juan's pages are impossible
0:37:51 > 0:37:54"and he's gone off on holiday again.
0:37:54 > 0:37:58"We have to have the September issue finalised by tomorrow. Quick!
0:37:58 > 0:38:02"Run up to the studio right away and do some fabulous retakes."
0:38:02 > 0:38:06When Blumenfeld arrived, he would have found something
0:38:06 > 0:38:09so different from what was in Europe.
0:38:09 > 0:38:11It was an exciting time for magazines.
0:38:11 > 0:38:16It was an exciting time for fashion because, for the first time, America
0:38:16 > 0:38:21was all on its own in producing fashion without French references.
0:38:21 > 0:38:24There was a sense of possibility.
0:38:29 > 0:38:32Among those who Blumenfeld photographed
0:38:32 > 0:38:34was Carmen Dell'Orefice,
0:38:34 > 0:38:38who is best known today as the world's oldest working supermodel.
0:38:38 > 0:38:42It was Blumenfeld who first shot her for Vogue
0:38:42 > 0:38:47and put her on the cover in 1947. They remained friends until he died.
0:38:48 > 0:38:54In his studio, he was such an artist.
0:38:55 > 0:38:57I came in
0:38:57 > 0:39:00and he made me feel like a guest.
0:39:00 > 0:39:05Like an honoured guest, who was so perfect
0:39:05 > 0:39:09and was doing something so wonderful for him.
0:39:11 > 0:39:15It just made me feel that I was all right.
0:39:15 > 0:39:17That I was smart.
0:39:17 > 0:39:21I didn't know quite what it was that I did
0:39:21 > 0:39:25but I could accept his opinion
0:39:25 > 0:39:29because it was in the smallest gesture of approval
0:39:29 > 0:39:35as I listened to what Erwin Blumenfeld directed me
0:39:35 > 0:39:40either to stand or to sit or to move my hand or turn my head.
0:39:40 > 0:39:47He contained me within the thoughts
0:39:47 > 0:39:50of the picture he had in his head,
0:39:50 > 0:39:54that he was creating a painting,
0:39:54 > 0:39:57only with more dimension.
0:39:57 > 0:40:01With lights, this huge camera
0:40:01 > 0:40:04that he was behind with the black cloth over him.
0:40:06 > 0:40:11Blumenfeld had a charisma that was undeniable, that was incredible.
0:40:11 > 0:40:15I mean, women just loved him. They really did.
0:40:15 > 0:40:18He was seductive without wanting to be.
0:40:18 > 0:40:20He would come into a room,
0:40:20 > 0:40:23he'd be the only person there that you would focus on.
0:40:23 > 0:40:25Everything would stop.
0:40:25 > 0:40:30And this had to do with some interior power that he had.
0:40:32 > 0:40:34And a woman who might not be beautiful
0:40:34 > 0:40:38would be beautiful in his presence if he saw her as beautiful.
0:40:38 > 0:40:43In 1947, a woman walked into his studio who was to change his life.
0:40:45 > 0:40:50Kathleen Levy Barnett was an extraordinarily glamorous
0:40:50 > 0:40:53young photo editor and stylist.
0:40:53 > 0:40:57And she ran Erwin Blumenfeld's studio at 222 Central Park South,
0:40:57 > 0:41:01transforming his business by securing a lot of commercial work
0:41:01 > 0:41:04and buying his first colour printer.
0:41:04 > 0:41:08She was also to become the second great love of his life.
0:41:08 > 0:41:11Certainly in the years from the time he was in America
0:41:11 > 0:41:16to the time he died, certainly his greatest love was Kathleen.
0:41:19 > 0:41:22Blumenfeld's seven-year affair with Kathleen
0:41:22 > 0:41:25was helped by the tolerant attitude of his wife, Lena.
0:41:28 > 0:41:32Well, as long as it was in the open and it wasn't a secret thing
0:41:32 > 0:41:35and as long as it didn't seem too serious,
0:41:35 > 0:41:40she thought this was a great artist, provocative.
0:41:40 > 0:41:45I mean, Picasso had women going through revolving doors
0:41:45 > 0:41:50and why didn't her husband, who was a great photographer
0:41:50 > 0:41:53and a great artist, have the same privilege?
0:41:53 > 0:41:58And she, I think, had relatively, relatively open ideas about...
0:42:00 > 0:42:04..extramarital affairs, absolutely, but not...
0:42:06 > 0:42:09She didn't want my father to leave her.
0:42:09 > 0:42:12This is an entry from Lena's diary.
0:42:13 > 0:42:19"When he tells me things that hurt me, he wants not only to hurt me
0:42:19 > 0:42:24"but at the same time, he wants my understanding and the feeling that,
0:42:24 > 0:42:29"because of our love for each other, I am part of him,
0:42:29 > 0:42:34"not as a mother, but as his other half."
0:42:35 > 0:42:39With Kathleen now a permanent fixture in the Blumenfeld family,
0:42:39 > 0:42:42it was only a matter of time before a Blumenfeld's middle son,
0:42:42 > 0:42:46Henry, a physicist, was to strike up a relationship with her.
0:42:46 > 0:42:49They were later to marry.
0:42:49 > 0:42:52It was Erwin Blumenfeld who had played matchmaker.
0:42:52 > 0:42:59And he was also, at times, extremely jealous... But still...
0:43:02 > 0:43:04..he brought us together initially.
0:43:04 > 0:43:08And he also brought us together at a later date
0:43:08 > 0:43:12when we had been separated for a while.
0:43:13 > 0:43:18And yet, at the same time, he was very jealous at other times. So...
0:43:19 > 0:43:22It is...complex.
0:43:28 > 0:43:33After Kathleen married Henry, Erwin's understanding wife, Lena,
0:43:33 > 0:43:37came to accept and settled into the role of grandmother
0:43:37 > 0:43:39to Kathleen and Henry's two children.
0:43:39 > 0:43:43- YORICK:- Well, she was, I think, also very jealous of Kathleen
0:43:43 > 0:43:47but as long as Kathleen wasn't going to marry him or run away with him,
0:43:47 > 0:43:51I think that she was relieved not to lose my father.
0:43:52 > 0:43:54But there was one person in the family
0:43:54 > 0:43:56who would never accept Kathleen -
0:43:56 > 0:44:02Erwin's very first photographic muse, his daughter, Lisette.
0:44:02 > 0:44:08My mother told me about a picture of Kathleen standing in between
0:44:08 > 0:44:10Henry, who she had married,
0:44:10 > 0:44:13and Blumenfeld, whom she had loved.
0:44:13 > 0:44:17And my mother thought it was disgusting that they both looked
0:44:17 > 0:44:21the same, and then there was Kathleen in the middle.
0:44:22 > 0:44:26This animosity between family members would come back to haunt
0:44:26 > 0:44:28Blumenfeld from beyond the grave.
0:44:28 > 0:44:31But, during his lifetime, the main tension was not
0:44:31 > 0:44:34between Kathleen and Erwin's beloved daughter, Lisette.
0:44:34 > 0:44:38From the time that he moved to New York, the real conflict
0:44:38 > 0:44:42was between art and commerce, between the work he did for money
0:44:42 > 0:44:45and the pictures he took in the pursuit of beauty.
0:44:46 > 0:44:49All photographers have to earn a living, so he went
0:44:49 > 0:44:53where the money was and we know that he felt a little badly about that.
0:44:55 > 0:44:59At one point he suggested to Yorick, his son,
0:44:59 > 0:45:01that he had prostituted himself.
0:45:02 > 0:45:06And it's interesting that several times in his autobiography
0:45:06 > 0:45:09he talks about prostitution. I think it's kind of interesting.
0:45:09 > 0:45:14He seems to be suggesting that prostitution is not so much
0:45:14 > 0:45:19just about him, but rather a kind of temptation
0:45:19 > 0:45:24and a widespread part of the human condition.
0:45:24 > 0:45:26I think we can go that far.
0:45:26 > 0:45:32So Blumenfeld, the photographer, Blumenfeld the artist,
0:45:32 > 0:45:34is a much more interesting subject
0:45:34 > 0:45:36than Blumenfeld the fashion photographer.
0:45:36 > 0:45:40In the 1960s, Blumenfeld the commercial artist
0:45:40 > 0:45:43was to embark on an exciting new adventure
0:45:43 > 0:45:47as the director of the world's first fashion films.
0:46:12 > 0:46:16The latter part of his career, with certain of his clients,
0:46:16 > 0:46:20he suggested to them that the fashion and beauty imagery could be seen
0:46:20 > 0:46:24in movement just as beautifully as it could be seen as a still image.
0:46:24 > 0:46:28And this fact is probably one of the most important facts
0:46:28 > 0:46:30and one of the most relevant today.
0:46:39 > 0:46:43He was talking about how he was taking his beautiful imagery
0:46:43 > 0:46:46onto television, and that could be a revolution in how you communicated,
0:46:46 > 0:46:49so these little films were really ahead of their time
0:46:49 > 0:46:52and stand up very well artistically when we look at them now.
0:46:52 > 0:46:56The beauty that he put in his still images is very coherent
0:46:56 > 0:46:59and very dominant in his films.
0:47:20 > 0:47:25His other risky late-life adventure was with a 22-year-old Swiss girl
0:47:25 > 0:47:30named Marina Schinz, who worked with him as an assistant from 1961.
0:47:30 > 0:47:34Her father was a famous radiologist in Switzerland
0:47:34 > 0:47:40and he was so famous that the Fuhrer came to him to be examined
0:47:40 > 0:47:44when he had some kind of cancerous problem,
0:47:44 > 0:47:51and Herr Schinz was the Fuhrer's chosen doctor.
0:47:52 > 0:47:56- And...- Was that spoken of? I mean...?- Yes.
0:47:56 > 0:48:00And Blumenfeld, being a Jew from Berlin,
0:48:00 > 0:48:04was obsessed with Hitler from the very beginning.
0:48:08 > 0:48:10- YORICK:- Eventually, they became lovers
0:48:10 > 0:48:14and, when my mother was in Vienna,
0:48:14 > 0:48:16in the hospital, sick,
0:48:16 > 0:48:20I think only then did Marina come to stay with my father.
0:48:20 > 0:48:23My mother did know all about what was going on.
0:48:23 > 0:48:30When his wife, Lena, was with us in Vienna and she was in hospital
0:48:30 > 0:48:34and she was really suffering, he came over to see her
0:48:34 > 0:48:38and there was an immensely emotional scene in the hospital
0:48:38 > 0:48:42where Erwin was crying and they were holding each other
0:48:42 > 0:48:48and it was so tender and loving that I could hardly stay in the same room.
0:48:49 > 0:48:54But even Lena's tolerance had its limits, as she wrote to him in 1967.
0:48:57 > 0:49:00"Neither the beautiful memories of our past,
0:49:00 > 0:49:04"nor the wonderful children and grandchildren we have together,
0:49:04 > 0:49:08"have helped us to live together in harmony.
0:49:08 > 0:49:12"Neither can I suffer any longer at this way.
0:49:12 > 0:49:19"That's why I must finally agree that it might be better
0:49:19 > 0:49:21"if you marry M.
0:49:22 > 0:49:27"But you don't want me to be part of this any longer,
0:49:27 > 0:49:29"as I was before.
0:49:29 > 0:49:31"Because you don't want to be old with me.
0:49:32 > 0:49:36"You want to be young, with M."
0:49:37 > 0:49:41# The other woman
0:49:41 > 0:49:46# Finds time to manicure her nails
0:49:46 > 0:49:52# The other woman is perfect where her rival fails... #
0:49:52 > 0:49:58In his last relationship with Marina, he wanted to explain it to us,
0:49:58 > 0:50:03because we didn't really understand what his attraction was
0:50:03 > 0:50:06or what the relationship was. I'll never forget -
0:50:06 > 0:50:11we were sitting in a cafe in Paris and there was a mirror behind him.
0:50:11 > 0:50:16And he said, "When I sit here, and someday you'll understand this,
0:50:16 > 0:50:22"when I sit here, looking at my image as it gets older every minute
0:50:22 > 0:50:25"I'm looking at it, it's horrifying.
0:50:25 > 0:50:29"But if I can be with a young woman, and I look in her eyes,
0:50:29 > 0:50:32"and I see an image of myself as a young man,
0:50:32 > 0:50:39"I feel re-energised, rejuvenated and I feel I am escaping the inevitable."
0:50:39 > 0:50:42And I think that that was incredibly honest of him.
0:50:42 > 0:50:46He was very afraid of becoming old.
0:50:46 > 0:50:49It wasn't only intimations of his own mortality
0:50:49 > 0:50:51that threatened Blumenfeld.
0:50:51 > 0:50:56The magazine world, too, was changing before his eyes.
0:50:56 > 0:50:58I think, at one time, he was regarded
0:50:58 > 0:51:01as one of the leading photographers in America.
0:51:01 > 0:51:03And then a new generation came in
0:51:03 > 0:51:06and he was already seen as the old generation.
0:51:06 > 0:51:08Fashion runs in cycles, it always has.
0:51:08 > 0:51:10It doesn't take long before things fall out of fashion -
0:51:10 > 0:51:12that's one certainty in fashion.
0:51:12 > 0:51:15If you don't like what you see, wait six months and it'll all change.
0:51:15 > 0:51:17The magazine just changed. Culture changed.
0:51:17 > 0:51:20What they were reporting on changed, the clothes changed
0:51:20 > 0:51:23and the new photographers came in.
0:51:23 > 0:51:27This was a new experience for Blumenfeld, who had been lionised
0:51:27 > 0:51:30virtually from the day he entered the New York fashion world.
0:51:30 > 0:51:34But the '60s revolution in taste and style had run ahead of him,
0:51:34 > 0:51:36and suddenly he had nowhere to go.
0:51:41 > 0:51:45The summer of 1969 found him in Rome,
0:51:45 > 0:51:47in the company of Marina Schinz.
0:51:48 > 0:51:51We were giving a Fourth of July party.
0:51:51 > 0:51:56I got this telephone call from Marina that he had died.
0:51:56 > 0:52:02I think it was clear from the phone call from Marina that Erwin
0:52:02 > 0:52:07had decided to end his life rather than simply die,
0:52:07 > 0:52:12that he had run down these Spanish Steps and run back up them
0:52:12 > 0:52:14and, when he got to the room,
0:52:14 > 0:52:17and he hadn't been taking his heart medicine,
0:52:17 > 0:52:20I think it was quite clear from that phone call
0:52:20 > 0:52:22that it had happened in that way.
0:52:25 > 0:52:27He forced this heart attack on himself,
0:52:27 > 0:52:32thinking that he had prostate problems, perhaps cancer.
0:52:32 > 0:52:36But, in any case, he did not want to have an operation
0:52:36 > 0:52:38or he didn't want to die suffering
0:52:38 > 0:52:41and going through a prolonged death - he wanted death.
0:52:44 > 0:52:48That the 72-year-old Erwin Blumenfeld would kill himself
0:52:48 > 0:52:50was shocking enough to his family.
0:52:50 > 0:52:54But what happened next resulted in decades of dispute.
0:52:56 > 0:52:59The people he was most closely involved with,
0:52:59 > 0:53:01whether it was his children,
0:53:01 > 0:53:04his daughter, Lisette,
0:53:04 > 0:53:05his wife,
0:53:05 > 0:53:08Kathleen, Marina,
0:53:08 > 0:53:11they all felt they had...
0:53:11 > 0:53:14They all felt possessively about him.
0:53:14 > 0:53:17They all wanted to claim a part of him.
0:53:17 > 0:53:20And I think that led to...
0:53:21 > 0:53:24..enormous animosity when he died.
0:53:26 > 0:53:29After the burial, it was revealed that he had left
0:53:29 > 0:53:34the management of his photographic estate to his mistress, Marina.
0:53:34 > 0:53:38She was to prove a reluctant champion.
0:53:38 > 0:53:43I guess if Marina would have pushed the prints...
0:53:43 > 0:53:47But Marina had a life and wanted to move on.
0:53:48 > 0:53:52And didn't want to be
0:53:52 > 0:53:54really known as...
0:53:54 > 0:53:59Maybe she didn't want her early life to be exposed that way.
0:53:59 > 0:54:02- How do you mean? - Well, being his girlfriend.
0:54:03 > 0:54:08She was 22 and he was 65.
0:54:08 > 0:54:12For a photographer's reputation to survive,
0:54:12 > 0:54:14you have to have left a champion.
0:54:14 > 0:54:17That's how you survive after death as a photographer.
0:54:19 > 0:54:24For the first 20 years about Marina,
0:54:24 > 0:54:26she tried to do a little bit,
0:54:26 > 0:54:30perhaps not too much, but at least she put things in proper boxes
0:54:30 > 0:54:33and so on. She divided up the pictures and gave...
0:54:33 > 0:54:37one quarter to each child and kept one quarter for herself.
0:54:37 > 0:54:41Too many people, including some of the women in his life,
0:54:41 > 0:54:47felt that they had an entitlement to a section of that life
0:54:47 > 0:54:49and the story of his career.
0:54:49 > 0:54:55So it became a kind of tug of war between various personalities.
0:54:55 > 0:55:00You can't bring a body of work together when the motivating forces
0:55:00 > 0:55:05behind the factions are jealousy, hatred and destruction.
0:55:05 > 0:55:07And...
0:55:07 > 0:55:11And self-interested power and glory and control.
0:55:14 > 0:55:18It's been left to the grandchildren to put the past behind.
0:55:18 > 0:55:22They are co-operating, making thousands of prints
0:55:22 > 0:55:26left by Blumenfeld available to a wider public.
0:55:26 > 0:55:31These photographs, taken at his studio at 222 Central Park South,
0:55:31 > 0:55:34and published around the world in the '40s and '50s,
0:55:34 > 0:55:37are finally being exhibited for the very first time,
0:55:37 > 0:55:41thanks in particular to his granddaughter, Nadia.
0:55:41 > 0:55:43I put a lot of work into this
0:55:43 > 0:55:47to get them to a better condition,
0:55:47 > 0:55:52to be recognised, to be shown to the world and not wait
0:55:52 > 0:55:56for the rest of the family to say yes or no to this.
0:55:56 > 0:56:00And so I think that, in time, his name will come up
0:56:00 > 0:56:06for the future as one of the great photographers of the 20th century.
0:56:43 > 0:56:47Museums are also at last opening their doors to Blumenfeld,
0:56:47 > 0:56:51with big shows at the Louvre in Paris, Somerset House in London
0:56:51 > 0:56:55and at the Metropolitan Museum of Photography here in Tokyo.
0:56:56 > 0:57:01And as new generations are learning about Blumenfeld's work,
0:57:01 > 0:57:05the man who shot to fame photographing beautiful women
0:57:05 > 0:57:10is starting to be remembered as the richly complex artist he always was.
0:57:12 > 0:57:17And I think that we have to really perhaps begin to see
0:57:17 > 0:57:18the fuller picture again
0:57:18 > 0:57:20and deal with the complexity of this individual
0:57:20 > 0:57:25and understand how ahead of his time, how avant-garde he was.
0:57:25 > 0:57:29And how willing he was to examine himself as an artist
0:57:29 > 0:57:32and be open to all of these mediums.
0:57:34 > 0:57:36If you look at his work,
0:57:36 > 0:57:39it's been copied by pretty much every photographer
0:57:39 > 0:57:44that has worked in the kind of art-nudes...
0:57:44 > 0:57:47sort of fashion-beauty world.
0:57:47 > 0:57:48In one way or another,
0:57:48 > 0:57:50we've all drawn inspiration,
0:57:50 > 0:57:52whether you've known it or not.
0:57:54 > 0:57:57I think it's important to see him
0:57:57 > 0:57:59as a great photographer.
0:57:59 > 0:58:02If we want to say he's a great fashion photographer, he was.
0:58:02 > 0:58:06And he did things in fashion that set the trend for years to come.
0:58:08 > 0:58:12What makes it so timeless is the fact that the beauty
0:58:12 > 0:58:17is still as beautiful today as it was 70 years ago.
0:58:17 > 0:58:21He was able to define beauty
0:58:21 > 0:58:23and the women of the 20th century.
0:58:25 > 0:58:28I've spent my whole life letting off suicidal steam
0:58:28 > 0:58:31which some might call vitality.
0:58:31 > 0:58:34To date, everyone has had to die.
0:58:34 > 0:58:39Yet immortality is just around the corner.
0:58:39 > 0:58:41It's every man for himself.
0:58:41 > 0:58:45Will I manage to shuffle off this mortal coil?
0:59:04 > 0:59:07Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd