Although Erwin Blumenfeld would no doubt have emphatically denied it, his autobiography might be seen as an example of the trajectory of an artistic life brutally fashioned by the vicissitudes of 20th-century European history. Born in 1896 into a bourgeois Berlin Jewish family, he served in the German army during World War I, was linked to the Berlin dada coterie, and was interned in France in World War II, all before finally immigrating to America and finding eventual acclaim as one of this century's great photographers. Such a bald summary actually does this book a disservice. Avoiding the self-justifications and stage-managed chronologies of the typical autobiography, Blumenfeld's story is a witty and linguistically exuberant delight, abounding in puns and narrative passages that rival the work of many professional writers.

Eye to I is merciless in its treatment of the author himself--chance and accident guide Blumenfeld far more than heroics or judgment, to which his account of the series of brutal internments in French concentration camps attests. But then again, it is precisely this attitude that helps him survive: the 20th century was not made for the rational, and Blumenfeld's irony and ridicule is perversely a mark of the utmost sanity. Berlin dada, only fleetingly mentioned, must have helped hone these weapons--the only ones that an artist like him could wield. Blumenfeld proved himself as quirky and original a prose writer as he was a photographer; this beautifully translated book with its too-brief selection of extraordinary images (including an astonishing 1933 photomontage of Hitler) is a marvelous testament to a life and to art vigorously and joyously made. --Burhan Tufail, Amazon.co.uk


From Publishers Weekly
The late fashion photographer's work for Harper's Bazaar and VogueAurbane photos that were the "New Yorkiest" of New YorkAwere created in spite of the meddling and conniving of "hideous" and "nasty" art directors and fashion editors. Or so Blumenfeld (1896-1969) would have us believe in this caustic, vigorously sardonic memoir, first published in Germany in 1976. It's a raucous narrative, rich with beguiling tall tales, narrow escapes and praise for some of the kinder denizens of the demimonde. The ability to survive and even flourish in hostile environments is Blumenfeld's recurrent theme, but these struggles unfold mostly in the classrooms and parlors of turn-of-the-century Berlin and the battlefields and concentration camps of the world wars. Unsparing humor and a compelling sense of the absurd invigorate Blumenfeld's tales of WWI, when he was pressed into service as an ambulance driver (he was the only survivor when, "driving with neither lights nor experience," his loaded "Corpse-Carrier" overturned). He was also the bookkeeper of Field Brothel No. 209 (in service of a unit diagnosed as "one hundred percent syphilitic"Aattributable, perhaps, to the practice of recycling hard-to-find condoms); a go-between for an amorous nun and priest; and a French tutor to an obtuse sergeant (who when hiring Blumenfeld awarded him the Iron Cross). His reminiscences about his brutal internment in a French concentration camp during WWII unleash some of his most vitriolic and hilarious rhetoric, not only at Hitler (the "idol of lavatory manufacturers" whose likeness, superimposed on a crystal skull, was the author's first celebrated photograph) but also at the French collaborators, in whose pestilential camps the photographer was imprisoned. Illustrations. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Photographer Blumenfeld (1897-1969) may be remembered best today for his striking Vogue and Harper's Bazaar covers, which earned him a place as fashion's highest-paid photographer. His life encompassed much more, however, as recounted here in searingly candid terms in this first English translation of his autobiography. Born in Berlin, Blumenthal received his first camera at the age of ten. His service in World War I deepened his cynicism, and he subsequently joined an avant-garde circle that included George Grosz and members of the Dada movement. He tried Harper's Bazaar in New York, where he lasted just seven weeks, then returned to Paris on the eve of World War II and was interned as an alien. After his release, he went back to New York, but there is disappointingly little here about his subsequent New York career. His autobiography, which is at once funny and sad, witty and bitter, tells little about his photography; its real value is in his impressions of the times and the people he met along the way. For large photography and fine art collections.AKathleen Collins, Bank of America Archives, San Francisco Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
In this age when publishers crowd bookstore shelves with inane memoirs by equally inane celebrities, Thames and Hudson turns that tepid trend right on its head with the posthumous U.S. edition of Blumenfeld's autobiography, Eye to I. As a photographer, Blumenfeld transformed the face of photography in the '40s and '50s when he brought the styles and ideas of European art to America fashion magazines. He created a bold new aesthetic for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar by photographing models in avant-garde poses based on Dada, surrealism, and Bauhaus design ideas. As a writer, Blumenfeld was no less innovative and iconoclastic. Witness, for example, the way he describes his birth: "Whatever the precise details, on 5 May 1896, at the midnight hour, I was unceremoniously thrust into my first concentration camp. Doubled up and tethered in solitary confinement for nine months . . . I began learning how to die." Blumenfeld details his education as a photographer with the same acerbic wit and unflinching eye, sparing no one his rapier criticisms, least of all himself. What Blumenfeld saw is exactly what the reader gets in Eye to I. Veronica Scrol


From Kirkus Reviews
Elegant, mesmerizing, and hyperbolic, photographer Blumenfelds autobiography makes myth of a life that was already marked by extremes. Born to a petit-bourgeois Jewish family in turn of the century Berlin, Blumenfeld was an indifferent student, fascinated by physics, lousy at chemistry. Apart from an early interest in photography (an existing self-portrait features him as Pierrot at 14), there was little to indicate that he would eventually gain both notoriety and fame as one of fashion photographys leading talents and work for both Vogue and Harpers Bazaar. His career path was nothing if not circuitous, and in this volume he clearly relishes describing his wild fate. Drafted into the German army at 19, he drove an ambulance in WWI and later served as an army-brothel bookkeeper. In the midst of this picaresque tale, truth doesnt seem to matter as much as his ability to make use of the past: first as illustration, later as anecdote and a stylized form of revenge. Some of Blumenfelds wartime misadventures really strain the seams of credulity: Its difficult to believe that he walked in on the American consul as the man was receiving sexual favors from a mutual friend, but such is the authors bravado that he claims the incident helped him gain necessary visa papers. Such narrative excess ultimately undermines his autobiography, however, and the real torments he endured from poverty, active duty, and anti-Semitism to internment, sickness, and emigration lose their impact. Although Blumenfeld never imagined making his home in the US, he did some of his best-known work here, creating images that still resonate in our cultural consciousness. In spite of hardship and privation, Blumenfeld created lushly beautiful images that combined the stylistic concerns of portraiture with the formal concerns of art, and found worldly, if somewhat bitter, success. (80 illustrations) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Times Literary Supplement
Important and compelling. . . . One reads [it] with both laughter and grief . . . a natural linguistic brilliance.


Book Description
The life of Erwin Blumenfeld, one of the century's best-known photographers, was by no means conventional. By turns acerbic, self-mocking, playful, even absurd, his autobiography is a compelling, virtuoso account of an extraordinary man. All his subjects--his Jewish family, the Germans, the Vichy French, his models, New York publishers--are dealt equal measures of wit, mockery, and merciless irony. He spares himself least of all. Born in turn-of-the-century Berlin, Blumenfeld was drafted to serve in the First World War, first as an ambulance driver (although he couldn't drive) and then as a bookkeeper in a field brothel, and he was awarded the Iron Cross for giving his sergeant French lessons. Between the wars he was part of an avant-garde circle that included such artists as Else Lasker-Schler, George Grosz, and members of the Dada movement. During the Second World War, Blumenfeld was interned in a series of French camps but eventually arrived in New York, where he found work with Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, producing many of their most memorable covers and becoming fashion's highest-paid photographer. From the creator of some of the most striking and influential photographs ever taken, Blumenfeld's autobiography--published here in English for the first time--is a biting and iconoclastic take on the century, and the insightful, gripping story of an exceptional life.


Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The life of Erwin Blumenfeld, one of the century's best-known photographers, was by no means conventional. By turns acerbic, self-mocking, playful, even absurd, his autobiography is a compelling, virtuoso account of an extraordinary man. All his subjects--his Jewish family, the Germans, the Vichy French, his models, New York publishers--are dealt equal measures of wit, mockery, and merciless irony. He spares himself least of all. Born in turn-of-the-century Berlin, Blumenfeld was drafted to serve in the First World War, first as an ambulance driver (although he couldn't drive) and then as a bookkeeper in a field brothel, and he was awarded the Iron Cross for giving his sergeant French lessons. Between the wars he was part of an avant-garde circle that included such artists as Else L￯﾿ﾽasker-Schler, George Grosz, and members of the Dada movement. During the Second World War, Blumenfeld was interned in a series of French camps but eventually arrived in New York, where he found work with Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, producing many of their most memorable covers and becoming fashion's highest-paid photographer. From the creator of some of the most striking and influential photographs ever taken, Blumenfeld's autobiography--published here in English for the first time--is a biting and iconoclastic take on the century, and the insightful, gripping story of an exceptional life.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

The late fashion photographer's work for Harper's Bazaar and Vogue--urbane photos that were the "New Yorkiest" of New York--were created in spite of the meddling and conniving of "hideous" and "nasty" art directors and fashion editors. Or so Blumenfeld (1896-1969) would have us believe in this caustic, vigorously sardonic memoir, first published in Germany in 1976. It's a raucous narrative, rich with beguiling tall tales, narrow escapes and praise for some of the kinder denizens of the demimonde. The ability to survive and even flourish in hostile environments is Blumenfeld's recurrent theme, but these struggles unfold mostly in the classrooms and parlors of turn-of-the-century Berlin and the battlefields and concentration camps of the world wars. Unsparing humor and a compelling sense of the absurd invigorate Blumenfeld's tales of WWI, when he was pressed into service as an ambulance driver (he was the only survivor when, "driving with neither lights nor experience," his loaded "Corpse-Carrier" overturned). He was also the bookkeeper of Field Brothel No. 209 (in service of a unit diagnosed as "one hundred percent syphilitic"--attributable, perhaps, to the practice of recycling hard-to-find condoms); a go-between for an amorous nun and priest; and a French tutor to an obtuse sergeant (who when hiring Blumenfeld awarded him the Iron Cross). His reminiscences about his brutal internment in a French concentration camp during WWII unleash some of his most vitriolic and hilarious rhetoric, not only at Hitler (the "idol of lavatory manufacturers" whose likeness, superimposed on a crystal skull, was the author's first celebrated photograph) but also at the French collaborators, in whose pestilential camps the photographer was imprisoned. Illustrations. (June)

Library Journal

Photographer Blumenfeld (1897-1969) may be remembered best today for his striking Vogue and Harper's Bazaar covers, which earned him a place as fashion's highest-paid photographer. His life encompassed much more, however, as recounted here in searingly candid terms in this first English translation of his autobiography. Born in Berlin, Blumenthal received his first camera at the age of ten. His service in World War I deepened his cynicism, and he subsequently joined an avant-garde circle that included George Grosz and members of the Dada movement. He tried Harper's Bazaar in New York, where he lasted just seven weeks, then returned to Paris on the eve of World War II and was interned as an alien. After his release, he went back to New York, but there is disappointingly little here about his subsequent New York career. His autobiography, which is at once funny and sad, witty and bitter, tells little about his photography; its real value is in his impressions of the times and the people he met along the way. For large photography and fine art collections.--Kathleen Collins, Bank of America Archives, San Francisco Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Elegant, mesmerizing, and hyperbolic, photographer Blumenfeld￯﾿ﾽs autobiography makes myth of a life that was already marked by extremes. Born to a petit-bourgeois Jewish family in turn of the century Berlin, Blumenfeld was an indifferent student, fascinated by physics, lousy at chemistry. Apart from an early interest in photography (an existing self-portrait features him as Pierrot at 14), there was little to indicate that he would eventually gain both notoriety and fame as one of fashion photography￯﾿ﾽs leading talents and work for both Vogue and Harper￯﾿ﾽs Bazaar. His career path was nothing if not circuitous, and in this volume he clearly relishes describing his wild fate. Drafted into the German army at 19, he drove an ambulance in WWI and later served as an army-brothel bookkeeper. In the midst of this picaresque tale, truth doesn￯﾿ﾽt seem to matter as much as his ability to make use of the past: first as illustration, later as anecdote and a stylized form of revenge. Some of Blumenfeld￯﾿ﾽs wartime misadventures really strain the seams of credulity: It￯﾿ﾽs difficult to believe that he walked in on the American consul as the man was receiving sexual favors from a mutual friend, but such is the author￯﾿ﾽs bravado that he claims the incident helped him gain necessary visa papers. Such narrative excess ultimately undermines his autobiography, however, and the real torments he endured from poverty, active duty, and anti-Semitism to internment, sickness, and emigration lose their impact. Although Blumenfeld never imagined making his home in the US, he did some of his best-known work here, creating images that still resonate in our cultural consciousness. In spite of hardship andprivation, Blumenfeld created lushly beautiful images that combined the stylistic concerns of portraiture with the formal concerns of art, and found worldly, if somewhat bitter, success. (80 illustrations)