Urformen der Kunst, 96 Bildtafeln (Archetypal Forms of Art, 96 Plates): Photographische Pflanzenbilder von Professor Karl Blossfeldt (Botanical Photographs by Professor Karl Blossfeldt)

1928/1941. Third edition (originally published in 1928). Hardcover. Gray paper-covered boards with title stamped in red on front cover and on cloth-covered spine, no dust jacket. Photographs by Karl Blossfeldt. Introduction by Karl Nierendorf (in German). Includes a list of plates. 112 pp., with 96 green-toned black and white plates. 12-1/2 x 9-7/8 inches. Out of print. Very scarce. An exceptionally well-preserved copy of this rare title. An excerpt from "The Photobook: A History, Volume 1" by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger: "[This] is one of the most striking books in photographic history, as well as one of the most popular...It was a key model for the 'typologies' school of contemporary German photography, but Blossfeldt's photobook masterpiece was not a Conceptual work of art. It was, like so much German photography of this period, pedagogical in nature, as much founded on the Arts-and-Crafts ethos as Bauhaus principles. Beginning in 1900, Blossfeldt--a rare combination of craftsman and art historian--made thousands of photographic enlargements of plant leaves, stems and seed pods in order to reveal the link between the structure of plants and artistic form....This is one of the few modern photobooks to be bought by art dealers with the intention of breaking it up and selling the individual plates to be framed and hung an a wall."