Photographs

Photographs

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 38. UMBO | 'SKATRUNDE', 1935.

UMBO | 'SKATRUNDE', 1935

Auction Closed

May 16, 01:31 PM GMT

Estimate

3,000 - 5,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

UMBO

1902 - 1980

'SKATRUNDE', 1935


Vintage ferrotyped silver print. Signed, dated and annotated in pencil by Phyllis Umbehr with the artist's copyright stamp on the verso.

Image 23 x 23 cm (9 x 9 in.);

sheet 24.8 x 24 cm (9¾x 9½in.)


Private collection, Germany

UMBO, the moniker chosen by artist Otto Maximilian Umbehr, is regarded as one of the most important photographers of the Bauhaus and Modernist movements. After being expelled from the Bauhaus school he began documenting the bohemian lifestyle of Berlin in the 1920s. It was then that he developed his avant-garde style in photography as clearly represented in these two vintage prints, Tea for Two, 1935 and Skatrunde, 1935.


In a tragic incident resulting from an air raid in 1943, UMBO’s studio and archive were completely destroyed, losing over 60,000 negatives. As a result, these rare prints hold an additional historical value, attesting to the merit of his legacy and early oeuvre. Claudia Perren, director of the Bauhaus Foundation Dessau, explains, ‘Besides László Moholy-Nagy, UMBO is still regarded as the Bauhaus photographer.’