Born June 13, 1865, in Schielo; died December 9, 1932, in Berlin, was a German sculptor and photographer best known for his rigorously formal plant photographs. His photographic work is associated with the New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) movement.

Life and Work

Karl Blossfeldt, the son of landowner August Blossfeldt of Schielo, began an apprenticeship in 1881 as a sculptor and modeler at the Carlswerk art foundry in Mägdesprung in the Harz Mountains. Even at this early stage, he used plant leaves as models for decorative elements. He soon proved to be a gifted modeler, drawing inspiration for floral ornamentation in wrought-iron fences and gates directly from natural forms.

At the age of nineteen, Blossfeldt began a foundational course of drawing at the Instructional Institute of the Berlin Museum of Decorative Arts (1884–1889), supported by a scholarship. Although trained in drawing, his primary interest increasingly shifted toward photography. From 1890 to 1896, he participated in a project led by drawing instructor Moritz Meurer to produce teaching materials for ornamental design on behalf of the Prussian Ministry of Science, Art, and Public Education. Together with a group of students, Blossfeldt traveled to Rome and subsequently throughout Italy, Greece, and North Africa to assemble a botanical pattern archive. This marked the beginning of his systematic photographic study of plants.

During this period, Blossfeldt’s photographs were first published in Meurer’s instructional materials. Meurer encouraged him to move away from the schematic copying of historical ornamentation in teaching. Instead, they viewed the study of natural forms as a return to the original sources of ornamentation in art and architecture and as a means of renewing applied artistic practice.

In 1898, Blossfeldt returned to Berlin and began teaching at the Royal School of Arts. From 1899 onward, with Meurer’s support, he held a teaching position at the Instructional Institute of the Museum of Decorative Arts in the newly established subject Modeling from Living Plants. At this point, photography was systematically introduced as a teaching tool to provide students with accurate visual references for sculptural modeling. Blossfeldt collected his plant material himself, often from neglected or working-class locations such as field paths and railway embankments, and occasionally from the Botanical Garden.

In 1921, Blossfeldt was appointed full professor at the Instructional Institute of the Museum of Decorative Arts, which merged in 1924 with the Academy of Fine Arts to form the United State Schools for Free and Applied Art in Berlin.

Blossfeldt’s international recognition was largely due to the Berlin art dealer and gallery owner Karl Nierendorf, who was deeply impressed by the aesthetic quality of the highly detailed plant photographs and organized the first exhibition of Blossfeldt’s work outside the educational context. In 1926, Nierendorf exhibited the photographs alongside sculptures from Papua New Guinea and paintings by Richard Janthur under the title Exotics, Cacti, and Janthur. Among the reviewers was the philosopher and critic Walter Benjamin.

Nierendorf also played a key role in the publication of Blossfeldt’s first book, Urformen der Kunst (1928), released by Ernst Wasmuth Verlag, which brought Blossfeldt widespread acclaim almost overnight. Shortly before his death in 1932, following his retirement, Blossfeldt was able to publish Wundergarten der Natur. A further volume, Wunder in der Natur: Photographic Documents of Beautiful Plant Forms, was published posthumously in Leipzig in 1942.

On September 17, 2020, a Berlin commemorative plaque was unveiled at his former residence in Berlin-Steglitz, Stephanstraße 6.

Reference

Biography text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), German edition.
Retrieved January 19, 2026.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Blossfeldt