Helmar Lerski

On original artist's mount. Signed in ink on print recto with Berlin studio ink stamp on mount verso.
Illustrated: Helmar Lerski, Lichtbildner: Fotografien und Filme, 1910-1947. Essen, Museum Folkwang, 1982. p. 57.

During this rich period of innovation and artistic expression, Helmar Lerski (1871-1956) photographed much of the intelligentsia of Berlin, including this young bookseller, George Wittenborn, who later immigrated to New York. Wittenborn Books was also a significant publisher and presence in the art world. When I first had this print, my former boss, Virginia Zabriskie, saw it my booth at Paris Photo in 2007 and told me it was a photograph of George Wittenborn. Though the photograph was made decades before she ever met him, Virginia said that his good looks were impossible to forget.

Signed in pencil on print recto within image.
Illustrated: Ute Eskildsen, ed., Helmar Lerski: Metamorphosis through Light. Luca Verlag, 1982, p. 49.

From 1932-1947, Lerski lived in Palestine and photographed Jews and Arabs and made films. In 1936, over a three-month period, he made 175 photographs of one individual. This project, titled Metamorphosis through Light, can be seen as a culmination of his decades long interest in portraiture. Lerski often made multiple photographs of his sitters where each looked strikingly different from the other. He used tight compositions with strong light and shadow utilizing reflectors sheets to direct light, sometimes from multiples directions. Metamorphosis through Light is almost surreal in that it shows photographs of the same person looking like so many different people and depicts the complexity of the human character.