Sigismund Blumann, California Editor and Photographer

Christian A. Peterson

Sigismund Blumann (1872-1956) (figure 1) was a promin­ent taste maker in Californian photography during the 1920s and 1930s. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area for his entire career, he edited magazines, wrote books, and made creative photographs. From 1924 to 1933 Blumann edited Camera Craft, the leading West Coast photographic monthly. Subsequently he established his own periodical, Photo Art Monthly, which he published until 1940. In these two magazines - for over fifteen years - Blumann found a large audience of mainstream pictorial photographers. In addition, he wrote five instruc­tional books on photography, providing a substantial

Figure 1. Sigismllnd Billmann. Self-Portrait, c. 1930. Minneapolis Institute of Arts, gift of Dr Donald and Alice Lappe.

HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY, VOLUME 26. NUMBER I, SI>RING 2002

amount of technical information for committed picture­makers. During the 1920s, Blumann also made accomp­lished pictorial photographs of his own, concentrating on landscape work. After the middle of the twentieth century, however, his visibility diminished quickly, due to his own inactivity and a growing disdain for pictorialism. None­theless, he established a place for himself in American photography that now deserves recognition.

Sigismund was born Simon Blumann on 13 or 14 September 1872, in New York City.l Nine years later, as an only child, he moved with his German-born father, Alexander, and his Polish-born mother, Rosalie (Price), to San Francisco. According to Thomas W. High, Blumann's grandson, Sigismund's mother encouraged her son to study music seriously at an early age, hoping he would become a concert pianist. He developed his talents sufficiently to perform in a public concert at age sixteen but in order to make a living started teaching music a few years later, in 1890. Blumann continued to teach and perform for the next thirty years, enjoying a full career in music before turning to photography. In 1894 he was the musical director of both the California School of Elocution and Oratory and a musical production that travelled out of state. Ten years later he helped form a 'music bureau' that booked bands and represented a music publisher. In the 191Os, when he was at the height of his musical career, he led his own orchestra, which played at venues such as the 1916 annual banquet of the Fire Underwriters Association of the Pacific.

Blumann met his future wife, HiJda Johansson, while teaching music, sometime during the 1890s. Sigismund and Hilda fell in love but were initially thwarted by both sets of parents owing to their different religions, the Blumanns beingJewish. Hilda was sent back to her native Sweden but managed to return to the United States and marry Sigismund in 1901. The couple lived with Blumann's parents for about five years but in 1907, shortly after the San Francisco earthquake and fire, they bought their own house across the bay in the Fruitvale section of Oakland. They had four girls: Ethel, born in 1902;

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Christian A. Peterson

Amy, born in 1906; Lorna, born in 1908; and Vera, born in 1911. In about 1915, badly needing more space, the Blumanns reconfigured their modest one-storey, six-room cottage into an impressive three-storey, sixteen-room house. Interestingly, the original storey was raised to the top of the house, and the new Roors inserted underneath. Blumann remained at this residence, situated on the crest of a small hill, for the rest of his life.

Blumann's enlarged house better accommodated one of his most serious avocations - letterpress printing. Foreshadowing his interest in photographic publishing, Blumann maintained a home printing press from at least 1889. In that year, still living with his parents in San Francisco, he handprinted a pamphlet promoting his musical services. To Music Teachers and Students: A New System oj Musical Theory in Hand-Book Form utilized red and black ink and old-style type on deckle-edged paper, evoking the designs of Englishman William Morris. Appropriately dubbed the Home Press, Blumann's print shop produced other small, well-designed pieces on music, poetry, and photography, his three main life passions.

Early Years in Photography

Blumann became interested in photography during the 1890s, early in his musical career. He first used his wife's Kodak camera to make snapshots and soon began search­ing the photographic periodicals for information and advice. He appreciated the 'spirit of helpfulness that pervaded' The American Annual oj Photography,2 but was most drawn to Photo-Beacon, a photographic monthly published in Chicago until 1907. In later years he fre­quently reminisced about how much he learned from the magazine's editor, F. Dundas Todd, who supplied both technical information and critiques of Blumann's prints. Todd promoted a conservative aesthetic agenda that Blumann would later continue in his own magazines.

By 1906, when the San Francisco earthquake hit, Blumann owned his own, more sophisticated camera, which he used to document the quake's aftermath. According to his family, Blumann wished to get so close to the action that he volunteered in rescue efforts in order to get behind police lines. Once there he photographed hundreds of destroyed buildings, blocks, and streets. Only a small number of 5 x 7-inch prints of these subjects remain, however, for Blumann later destroyed most of them, fearing that they might be used by insurance companies as evidence against property owners.

About the time he moved to Oakland, in 1907, Blumann became a part-time portrait photographer, as a sideline to his musical career. He joined with Jacques Tillmany, a fellow musician, to offer home portraiture, a line of portrait photography popularized by such advanced East-Coast workers as Clarence H. White. The advantages of this genre were that it relieved the photographer of maintaining a permanent studio and it elicited more relaxed poses from the subjects. The firm of Blumann

and Tillmany promoted themselves in a small brochure, At Home Portraiture, undoubtedly printed at Blumann's Home Press. It featured tipped-in original photographs as samples of their work and the phrase 'We Come To You' printed on every other page. The brochure's text con­trasted the activity of going to a photographer's studio for a portrait with the experience of having one's picture made at home. The former was described as time consum­ing and unnerving, in part, because of the foreign environ­ment. Home portraiture, on the other hand, provided ease and comfort for the sitter. The brochure also stated: 'You know your own home and safe to say you like it. The walls are familiar, the furniture is intimate, the atmosphere is your own, and if under such conditions you are not smoothed and patted into a benignant mood it were indeed strange 03 Blumann believed that a portrait reRected the way a subject felt and commented that, in five years experience, he had never had to ask someone to look pleasant in their own home. Blumann and Tillmany also appealed to entertainers to have their portraits made at their place of work, where make-up and wardrobes were conveniently located. And they declared that their type of portraiture was truly artistic ­a step above nonnal, studio work, where faces were often heavy retouched. Their work was 'of the freest, pictorial portraiture; perhaps too unusual for general taste, but it serves here to show how near the camera can come to simulating the methods of the painter'.4

It is likely that Blumann wrote the text in the Blumann and Tillmany brochure, for he soon began penning full­blown articles for photographic magazines. His first known contribution appeared in 1911, and over the next thirteen years - while he continued to make his living primarily in music - he wrote over fifty articles. They appeared in Photo-Era, a Boston monthly, The American Animal oj Photography, published in New York City, Wilson's Photographic Magazine, also from New York, and Camera CraJt, issued across the bay in San Francisco. The latter, not surprisingly included more than halfofhis early articles. During this period Hlumann addressed many of the topics he would continue to essay during his later career as an editor: technique, photography as an art, camera clubs, the role of critics, nude photography, and others.

B1umann's first known article, 'Cutting Masks for Border Printing', appeared in the March 1911 issue of Camera Craft. In it he explained the procedure for creating templates and using them to print decorative borders, which he used for many of his own photographs. The fact that his initial contribution to a magazine was technic­ally oriented affIrmed his early and abiding interest in the science of photography. His second article, which appeared two years later in the same journal, pointedly emphasized the importance of laboratory work. He chided photographers who used prepared chemicals for not fully understanding their materials and claimed that, for him, laboratory work was the most pleasurable part of pho­tography. Blumann boasted that he was the ultimate

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expert on kallitype pnntlng (better known today as vandyke brown) and extremely knowledgeable about other photographic processes: 'When it comes to the darkroom I have you all beaten; beaten all the way and back. There isn't a chemical H. D'Arcy Power [technical editor of Camera Crafl] has mentioned in the past ftve years that is not on my shelves'.5

In 1914 Blumann penned four articles. He continued to promote good technique, writing, for instance, about the economic and artistic advantages of sensitizing one's own photographic paper. 6 In other articles he railed against the Photographers Association of America for their proposal to license all photographers, amateur and profes­sional alike,7 and essayed the work and personality of Ohio photographer Nancy Ford Cones.8 The article, 'Constructive, Helpful Criticism', however, was his most important of the year and his first in Photo-Era. It began: 'Judgement tempered with mercy, criticism mellowed with sympathy, advice made acceptable with kindness ­these are the qualities which, when added to knowledge of the subject, make an ideal critic,.9 Blumann believed strongly in constructive criticism, and the values he listed guided him for the rest of his career as a writer on photography. In the article, he mentioned the patience and positive outlook of magazine editors F. Dundas Todd, of Photo Beacon, and Fayette]. Clute, of Camera Crafl, both of whom were role models for him. He observed that critics who lacked appreciation often became bitter and those who were too severe usually lost respect, fates he wished to avoid. Blumann also noted that - at this early stage in his writing - he had already been acknow­ledged for the value of his 'kind words' about several prominent photographers. Yet, curiously, he then admitted to a 'pitiful lack of real art education', an attribute that might have given pause to those he passed judgement upon. .

Despite Blumann's lack "of artistic training, he felt strongly that p,hotography could be an art. He weighed in on the subject for the fIrSt time in 1915 with a simply titled article, 'Photography a Fine Art', in which he made the familiar claim that it was the individual, not the materials, that created a work of art. If a photographer infused an image with perception, discernment, sympathy, understanding, and spirituality, it, most probably, rose to artistic heights. Blumann knew from personal experience how many choices a photographer had to make in order to succeed: 'Let us never forget that back of the ground glass is the eye of an artist, and that along every material step in the procedure a mind with dreams of an ultimate conception, the spirit of a master is the dominating force that rightly compounds the chemicals, measures the seconds accurately for the purpose, selects the paper of the proper tone, surface and finish, and at the last, so trims that the idea, emotion, or what you will, shall gain in its conveyance'. He believed the spirit of a thing decreed its creative standing and that the' Muse may smile through a photographic print'.10 Blumann allied himself

Sigismund Blumann, Editor and Photographer

with Alfred Stieglitz, who was still ftghting for acceptance of photography as an art in his exquisite quarterly Camera Work. He closed his 1915 article with 'a word of tribute to Mr. Stieglitz, who, with inflexible (stiff-necked, if you will) persistence, has disdained all argument and bravely gone ahead, maintaining that where photography is not a flOe art it is not to be considered at all' .11 'He neither argues nor debates', Blumann wrote, 'And I go with him'.

Blumann, however, felt that artistic photographers should not manipulate their imagery. His second article for Photo-Era, published in 1915, asked in its title, 'Is there a Place Left for Straight Photography'? He declared that 'however broadly a photographer works he must conftne himself to the limits of his branch of art or confess that he is reaching in extremis for help elsewhere, any­where. The painter works broadly, but with paints. He does not, for instance, put on plaster-moldings to get relief'.12 He felt that use of a 'doctored' negative excluded the resulting picture from classiftcation as a photograph, and he even objected to enlargements, preferring the classic, small and intimate contact print. Blumann was well aware that he stood counter to many prominent pictorialists who performed extensive handwork on their negatives and prints to make them look more painterly. But he disparaged the practice as misguided and found much of their work to be mere curiosities that did not enrich photography as an art form.

In addition to writing in 1915 about straight pho­tography and photography as an art, Blumann wrote at least four articles on San Francisco's Panama-Paciftc Exposition and one on how to organize a camera club. His articles on the exposition, which appeared in the New York Tribune and the Photographic Journal oj America, sur­veyed the buildings and exhibits without regard to photo­graphic issues. His piece on camera clubs, however, vividly addressed a key element of American photography at the time. From the late nineteenth century to the middle of the t'\:ventieth, amateurs, pictorialists, and profes­sionals organized hundreds of clubs around the country. They offered equipment, instruction, and comradeship, met regularly, and were bastions of social activity. By the First War most sizeable American cities had at least one camera club, a phenomenon that greatly spread serious interest in photography.

Blumann's article on camera clubs recounted his experience organizing a short-lived group in OakJand a few years earlier. It appeared in Camera Crafl and was one of the few critical articles to appear on the subject. He related how he had taken on the primary responsibility of writing letters to prospective members, renting club rooms, and running meetings. Soon, however, the club was consumed with debates over such non-photographic issues as its name and constitution, and its expenses began to exceed income. Exasperated, Blumann resigned as president and pledged to never try forming a club again. 'Don't do it', he wrote. 'To the pioneer in such a movement comes all the expenses, trouble, annoyance,

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Christian A. Peterson

blame and heartburnings, and none of the credit, profit, glory or pleasure'.13 He advised photographers to devote their time, money, and energy to their work, and, if they needed the facilities of a club, to avoid getting involved in its business affairs.

The very next year Blumann went against his own advice and participated in at least t""o organizations of photographers. In February 1916 Blumann wrote a lead article for Camera Craft praising the work ofJ. C. Strauss, a prominent St Louis portrait photographer. He compared Strauss's work to the paintings of Sir Joshua Reynolds and John Singer Sargent and boasted that he had success­fully recruited Strauss for membership in a group called the Photo Fellows of the World. Blumann indicated that he was, in fact, the 'Dean' of the group, which circulated work among its members and kept a low profile. Later that year Blumann spoke at the California Camera Club, which had been based in San Francisco since its founding in 1890. On a special evening devoted to Nancy Ford Cones, he critiqued her eighty pictures on display and conducted his orchestra, craftily combining his interests in photography and music. It seems that Blumann quickly got over his aversion to photographic organizations, probably because such groups were so pervasive and active.

In 1917 Blumann wrote his first article on nude photography and, separately, his first for The American Annual [1 Photography. Revealing his conservative outlook, Blumann initia1ly was somewhat sceptical of the nude as a subject for photography. He recommended it only for advanced pictorialists, rather than average amateurs, and warned that photographers were always in danger of presenting plain nakedness because of the verisimilitude of the medium. 'The camera is too frank and too handy. It shows, for aU the technique of the most skillful, a tendency to record, with .disconcerting keenness, the body - not the soul'.14 He feft that women photographers like Anne Brigman and Kate Smith did the best nude work, but not a single illustration accompanied his article, suggesting the equal conservatism of the editor of Camera Craft.

His contribution to the A nnual, the country's leading yearly digest, was ostensibly about studio Lighting, but, instead, essayed the influence creative amateurs were having on professional portraiture. BLumann pointed out that the best portraitists, such as John H. Garo, Elias Goldensky, and J. C. Strauss, had adopted the relaxed poses, natural lighting, diffused backgrounds, and artistic mounts used by pictorialists. The article also exemplified the author's inclination to write unconventionally. In its last paragraph, Blumann included a whopping 114-word sentence that, despite its length, was still incomplete. Over time his writing style would become increasingly idiosyncratic.

In 1918 Blumann again contributed heavily to period­icals, with seven articles. He wrote about his own role as a critic, revisited the subject of nudes, and penned two

articles inspired by the First World War. His patriotic pieces, one for Camera Cralt and one for Photo-Era. both appealed to photographers to sell to the government the lenses it badly needed for the war effort. He pointed out that the mi.litary needed only certain types of lenses and that most photographers who owned them could easily spare them. Blumann, who was then forty-six years old, did not try to recruit soldiers but did declare that he wished he was young enough to enlist.

Blumann's 1918 articles about nude photography were more encouraging than his piece on the same subject the year before. In Photo-Era he addressed the problems that many people had with the nude as a subject for artists. He suggested that most of those who objected to the nude were, in fact, not opposed to all nudity, only to particular nude pictures that were artistically unjustifi­able. 'When they are led to consider each instance by itself and to judge it as an instance rather than a compre­hensive basis, they will find that there is no evil in Art, and that there never was from its inception,.ls In his article for The American Annual of Photography 1918, Blumann advised photographers how to make successful images of the nude. According to him, the most important elements were generic settings, natural poses, and idealized models. And he analysed how these features were present in the work that illustrated his article - photographs by Anne Brigman, Louis A. Goetz, and Percy Neymann, all fellow Californians.

Blumann's other main topic in 1918 was the photo­graphic critic - his own position. Such self awareness kept his ego partially in check and made for interesting reading. Earlier in the year Blumann had criticized a particular photographer's nude work as inferior to his landscape work. In retrospect, however, Blumann appar­ently felt his words had been too harsh, so he wrote a rebuttal to his own article, criticizing both himself and the role of the critic. Penned under a pseudonym, he pulled no punches, charging himself with being glib, illogical, and a 'self-ordained arbiter of photographic destinies'.16 He went on to wish he could get the critics to attack one another, but knew that that would never happen because they maintained a code that kept them from doing so. This probably explains why Blumann did not sign his own name to the piece, hiding the fact that he was roasting himself. In another article, he suggested eliminating the position and influence of the exhibition judge (another form of critic), leaving decisions in the collective hands of the sponsoring organization. He even questioned his own standing in the field at the time, modestly stating that 'my time is limited, my position in photography precarious and obscure . .. I have no affiliations and no standing'. 17

Perhaps humbled, Blumann wrote less than half a dozen articles during the next two years. In 1919 he focused on the work of other photographers, avoiding any references to himself. Once again, he praised Nancy Ford Cones, in a lead article for Camera Craft that noted

56

her Inner urge to create and the necessity of such inspiration for all successful photographers. He also tran­scribed the thoughts of Percy Neymann, a close friend who, apparently, was more comfortable as a photographer than as a writer. Their joint article addressed how artistic photographers imbued their work with personal vision, a point well illustrated by the accompanying reproductions. Neymann asked four of the country's leading pictor­ialists - A. D. Chaffee, Louis Fleckenstein, Louis A. Goetz, and Wilbur H. Porterfield - to craft a print from the same negative, resulting in four vastly different inter­pretations of the same image, each of which, tellingly, reflected the maker's own style. The next year, Blumann concentrated on photographic technique, writing a few articles on the old kallitype process he still favoured.

In 1921, however, some ofBlumann's verve returned, and he enthusiastically addressed amateur photography as a relaxing pastime. Blumann paid equal attention to amateur and professional photographers in these early years. Knowing that snapshooting amateurs comprised the largest class of photographers, he identified with them and praised their simple, healthy ways: 'I set up my tripod, look at the ground glass, expose, and, when the sun is setting, go home with a clean, soothed mind, lungs filled with oxygen, and a good appetite' .18 He claimed that

photography was just one of the many hobbies that made his life feel richer than that of a Carnegie or Rockefeller. And he expressed childlike excitement over the experi­ence ofboth finding subjects out in the open and watching prints develop in the darkroom.

Sometime in the early 1920s Blumann retired from music to become an efficiency engineer, apparently setting up his own office. In this position he studied businesses and devised ways to increase the production of their equipment and personnel. His new profession, however, must have given him more, time to write about pho­tography, because in 1922 he put out no less than eleven

articles, by far the most in any year so far. His main topics were professional photography, the laws of art, and exhibition judging.

Despite Blumann's love for amateur photographers, he also appealed to professionals. He had, after all, been a portrait photographer himself, and he felt that many issues applied equally to both groups of workers. In 1922 he wrote articles for both Camera Craft and Photo-Era on making a living as a professional, encouraging serious photographers to try their hand at it. He believed profes­sionals had to artistically differentiate their work from their competitors in order to succeed fll1ancially, but warned them not to go extremes. 'If you are selling pictures, know Art, practice Art, deliver Art; but do not confound Art with Oddity', he wrote. 'Selling portraits is a profession; a profession is a trade; a trade is a defmed practice, not a debauch'.19 He continued to mention

Garo and Strauss as professionals he admired and added to his list Dudley Hoyt of New York and H. H. Pierce of Providence, Rhode Island.

Sigismund a/umann, Editor and Photoxrapher

Blumann considered nature the ultimate goal of art, and he wrote two articles stressing his belief in rigid artistic standards. In one, he contrasted the laws of art and individual taste: 'The rules of Art are not made arbitrarily and intended to curb individuality. They are arrived at by experience, and mature, patient study and considera­tion. They are based on laws of nature: basic and funda­mental'. And, he asserted that art had but one creed: 'To hold the mirror up to Nature,20 In the second article,

however, he admitted that images which merely duplic­ated or simulated nature were not enough, for selection and tntth were also necessary. Blumann's attitudes about art and nature were traditional, but he expressed pride in his conservatism, asserting that it was a solid rock upon which to base judgements.

By this time Blumann was judging exhibitions as well as writing about photographs. In 1922 he sat on the jury for the San Francisco photographic salon, an exhibition about which he wrote an article for Photo Era. In it he noted that photographic judges from the West, like himself, were more independent than those from the East. Western judges 'conscientiously and persistently refused to accept formulae instead of conceptions and arbitrary standards as a substitute for broader ideas', he wrote. They 'cannot be awed by names or distinctions not su bstantiated in the work shown. The pictures were judged as pictures and not as the product of any person. Names were as nothing to us; previous honors were not considered'21 As a result, he proudly proclaimed that some established photographers saw their pictures rejected while some new talent had its work accepted.

In 1923 Blumann churned out more than half a dozen articles, most of them on technique. He wrote about many brand-name products (such as the Verito lens and Cyko p;lper), but fdt compelled to defend this seemingly promo­tional practice as an important informational service for his readers. Early in the year he spoke to the Photographers' Association of California on ethics, the text of which Camera Craft subsequently published. Blumann was intro­duced to this group of professionals as having complete technical knowledge of photography. After telling them he felt at home in their midst, he encouraged each of them to defend good work and decent prices, to appreciate competition as healthy, and to work for the good of both the organization and the field as a whole.

Call/era Crt!!i, 1924-33

In early 1924 Blumann continued to write articles for Camera Cra)i and a few other magazines on a freelance basis. But in August of that year Camera Craft appointed him editor, allowing him to give up his job as an efficiency engineer and devote himself full-time to photography. The year before he had written his last article for The Aml'l';wn Annual of Photography and once he took over the reins of Camera Craft he rarely contributed articles to other periodicals, owing to the heavy workload of his

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Christian A. Peterson

own magazine. At fifty-two years of age, Blumann embarked on his career as a photographic editor - his most important contribution to the field of photography.

Camera CraJi had begun publishing in 1900 and became the longest lasting and most significant photo­graphic monthly west of the Mississippi during its time. Fayette J. Clute edited the magazine from almost its beginning until late in 1920, accepting many ofBlumann's early articles and serving as a role model for him. After Clute's departure the magazine had two other editors, each for short periods of time, before Blumann took over. Blumann went on to edit Camera CraJi longer than anyone except Clute, running it for nine years. From 1924 to 1933 he covered all the major concerns of amateur, pictorial, and professional photographers in a lively and timely manner. He enjoyed his work immensely and was widely regarded among photographers as a leading tastemaker in the 1920s and 1930s.

Blumann's first issue as editor of Camera Croft appeared in August 1924 (figure 2). In his first editorial he acknowledged the previous editor, P. Douglas Anderson, affirmed the stability of the magazine, and indicated that he looked forward to serving his readers. The magazine featured a lead article by commercial

----~-----------,Ff----VoL XXXJ No. II AUGUST, 1924 Q, Pri<eU ea.

CAME A C FT

Figure 2. Cover of Call/era Creif!, August 1924. Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson.

/

photographer Ralph Young, titled 'Putting Human Interest in Illustrations', plus articles on photography as an art, colouring techniques, quantity production of photographs, amateur adventures, and photographing forged handwriting. Pictorialist Thomas O. Sheckell con­tributed an article about one of his own tree photographs and Harold Cazneaux reviewed the first Australian salon. Blumann continued most of the regular columns that the magazine had run previously, covering profes­sional photographers, camera clubs, general information, technique (still authored by a previous editor), and amateur troubles (taken over by Blumann).

Over the next year Blumann instigated changes at the magazine to match his personal style and better serve the general readership. Most visually noticeable was the cover, which beginning in October 1924 reproduced a photograph. Previously, the magazine featured drawings, but Blumann embraced the obvious concept that a photo­graphic magazine should have a photographic cover. He added a department that carried bits of information on photographers around the country, called 'Chit Chat About our Friends', and one covering the activities of the national association of photographic finishers. In 1925 he commenced a photographic competition, in which readers sent their photographs into the magazine hoping to have them reproduced and awarded prizes. This was a common means for photographic periodicals to obtain images, engage their readers, and raise the level of amateur work, all goals Blumann had in mind.

Camera CraJi located its offices in the Claus Spreckels Building (now Central Tower), at the corner of Market and Third Streets in downtown San Francisco. A year after Blumann began editing the magazine it was acquired by Miss Ida M. Reed, who had previously worked under editor Clute. Blumann, who apparently never owned a share of the magazine, was kept on to work with a staff of six.

Blumann was Camera CraJi's most prolific writer during his tenure as editor. He authored many unsigned articles, oversaw a few regular columns, and wrote many feature articles. Between 1924 and 1933 his name appeared on 128 articles, an average of fourteen per year. Blumann wrote an editorial for every issue of Camera CraJi, a practice in which all magazine editors indulged. Here, he had free reign and authority to speak his mind about any topic - photographic or otherwise. He editorialized on a range of issues that went far beyond those covered in the magazine's articles. He promoted the golden rule and cautioned photographers against conceit and vanity. He railed against billboards and pushed for better maternity care. He encouraged photographers to take advantage of every season, working both outdoors making exposures and indoors making prints. And, despite his Jewish herit­age, he lavished Christmas greetings upon his readers every December.

In early 1926 Blumann christened his editorial column, 'Under the Editor's Lamp'. It featured a drawing

58

of Blumann in profile, reading at his desk, with a wall of books running off into the distance (figure 3). On the desk was a tobacco jar labelled 'My Lady Nicotine' and

in Blumann's mouth his ever-present pipe, producing ascending puffs of smoke. A few years later he described the charged atmosphere of his work station: 'Here I sit at a desk smoking rose leaves and violet petals in a Sevres pipe with an amber mouthpiece, incense rising from the censer at my side, dictionaries, books of rhetoric, and sweet music from the dynamic in a corner of the room, wooing the muses just to sling some nice language clear over to Iowa and you'. 22 By this time his editorials ran

two full pages, covered two or three separate topics, and often featured one of his own poems.

In January 1925, only half a year after starting at Camera Craft, Blumann penned the article 'It is Good to be a Photographic Editor' for Photo-Era. Blumann and A. H. Beardsley, the editor of Photo-Era, exchanged articles on the subject, due to their long friendship and interest in cooperation. Blumann had already editorialized on the advantages of close ties with other photographic magazines, and Beardsley credited him with initiating the idea of magazines sharing articles, like this. Blumann stated that photographers were his people and his liveli­hood a joy. 'It is good to be an Editor, especially of a magazine of this class, because it offers the possibility of friends as well as mere readers', he wrote. 'It is not a business, there is no work to it - this being an Editor. I find it all good, all fun'.23 Five years later, he admitted

there were hardships to the job but, nonetheless, pro­claimed great fulfilment from his work. Writing in one of his regular monthly editorials, Blumann described the pleasures of having a large readership, getting friendly letters, and dealing with interesting subjects all as 'mighty fine'.24

First and foremost, Blumann wanted Camera Craft to serve its readership. He continually asked readers to send him their comn~nts, good and bad, so that their interests and opinions could be represented in the magazine's pages. He proclaimed: 'If this is to be your magazine as we continue to assert, you have a right to kick and we have a right to expect you to help make it what you want' .25 He recognized that the magazine and its readers

were mutually dependent upon one another, working towards a common goal. Blumann relished feeling close to his approximately 8000 readers, even though one of

Sigismund Blumann, Editor and Photographer /

them once characterized the magazine's tone as too personal. He was, in fact, so gregarious that he personally answered every letter addressed to him at the magazine.

The monthly picture competition at Camera Craft also exemplified the extent to which the magazine was open to reader contributions. At one point Blumann indicated that he was receiving over five hundred entries a month, creating a vast resource of pictures for the magazine. Photographers who saw their pictures repro­duced undoubtedly felt invested in the magazine and encouraged to submit again. Their names were reprinted throughout the year to maintain their interest and burnish their pride.

Blumann's inclusive approach to editing Camera Craft was mirrored by his populist attitude towards photography in general. He believed that photography could be a creative outlet for everyone and that basic technique should be taught in the public schools. He welcomed an increasing number of women as photographic colleagues and picture-makers, and repeatedly promoted successful figures such as Nancy Ford Cones. After one interested woman stopped in his office for advice he wrote an article assuring photographers who were beginning, that every­one began on an equal plane of enthusiasm and talent. A few years later he observed that photography was the art form for the masses. 'Not many of us have the talent or

the time to cultivate the talent, if happily we have it, in painting', he wrote. But, 'the camera frees our shackled urge' .26 To encourage more widespread usc of cameras

Blumann encouraged high schools and colleges to add photography classes to their curricula. He believed that such instruction would increase both the aesthetic and scientific knowledge of their students, benefiting both the individual and society as a whole.

Individuals not in school who wished to learn pho­

tography had numerous other sources of instruction. Magazines, such as Camera CI"<?/i, and photographic books provided a plethora of information. Many people also sought personal instruction, either from an individual or through a camera club. Blumann provided many articles for beginners in Camera Craji, continually reviewed new books, and wrote an instruction manual of his own. He abo strongly encouraged newcomers to join a camera club, a lively place to learn photography.

In 1927 the Camera Craft Publishing Company, published l3lumann's first book, Photographic f;Vorkroom

-tJNDERIllHEEDitOR'SLAMPJ'~-IIIJII,JIIIII • I I I II 1···,· I 'VtC''':'--' c.~~WI I'·

~ ~ ..I" :1 ~ , ' ! '~" - ~

:~'~ Figure 3. W. R. Potter, Ultder the Editor's Lamp, 1920.

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Christian A. Peterson

Hartdbook (figure 4). In its preface, Blumann acknow­ledged that there were many big, complete technical books currently on the market. His manual, however, was meant to be concise and handy, including only simple formulae for everyday photographic procedures. He proudly proclaimed it contained no reprints and only recipes fully tested by himself. For easy use in the dark­room, the Handbook was small in scale (S-} x 51' inches) and indexed. Its modest 106 pages were packed with two hundred technical topics (from acid hardener to waxing solution), fourteen portrait illustrations by J. Anthony Bill and O. J. Smith, and sixteen pages of advertising. This book was Blumann's most successful, serving thousands of enthusiasts and going into four editions.

Blumann's love for books was evident in the pages of Camera Craji. He claimed he had a substantial personal library, consisting of several hundred photographic titles on technique, history, and individuals. The magazine's monthly book column sometimes repeatedly promoted the same title, rather than only reviewing it upon publica­tion. l1lustrative Photography in Advertising by Leonard A. Williams, for instance, was listed at least three times. This was an important early book on the subject, but the fact that it was published by Camera Craft most probably affected how often it was mentioned. Admirably,

Figure 4. Cover of Ph(1/(lxraphir vVvrkrvol/1 H'lIJdbvvk, C~mera Craft Publishing Company, S~l1 Francisco, 1933 (fourtn edition).

Blumann restrained himself from revlewll1g his own Photographic Workroom Handbook, knowing how self serving that would be. He nonetheless advertised it heavily in the magazine, often prominently featuring it on the inside front cover.

The Camera Craft Publishing Company, in addition to publishing books and a magazine, operated a successful book service, selling titles through the mail. Its 1932 catalogue claimed that it offered every important photo­graphic book currently in print and that it was the only catalogue of its kind. It included about 125 books in categOlies such as aerial, enlarging, nature, pictorial, portraiture, and stereoscopic. SubsCliptions to ten other photographic magazines were offered (at a discount with Camera Craft), as well as fifteen annuals, issued in countries from Britain to Japan. Seemingly, this catalogue could fulfd every photographic need.

In fact, reading books and making good pictures were two distinct activities. As much as Blumann believed in the value of photographic literature, he knew that the photographer ultimately had to put down his or her favorite treatise and pick up the camera. He wrote: 'Books have been written on Art Appreciation. Many on How to Make Pictures. Permit me to advise you that they are all good and may be studied with advantage. But above all learn to make pictures by trying to make them. You will never learn to swim from a book. Jump right in. The water's fll1e'.27

Blumann thought that camera clubs were an excellent place for individuals to learn to make pictures and swim around with other photographers, so to speak. Despite his early frustration over organizing a club in Oakland, he recognized the value of photographers banding together for knowledge and power. He was a charter member of the Photo Club of Alameda County and frequently spoke to other groups in the Bay Area. He ran a regular column in Camera Craji that reported the activities of clubs throughout the country, and he fre­quently editorialized on the subject. In 1930 Blumann listed the attributes of an ideal camera club member: a passion for photography; the spirit of 'clubbism'; a desire to remain an amateur; the ability to pay dues on time; a respect for other people; and the drive to make pictures that bettered photographic standards. A few years later he proclaimed: 'If you are in for the pleasures of photography get all the pleasure. You cannot do it secretively and alone. Humans are gregariolls by instinct and habit. Never so much so as in their hobbies. Find one another, you brothers in photography. Round yourselves up and keep rounded up. Join a club or start one,.28

During this period, most American camera clubs fomented pictorial photography, a movement that nIumann devoted much attention to in Camera Cr~fi.

'What is this pictorial art of which we hear so much and see so little'? he asked. 'We will sum it all up in two requirements: emotional appeal and sense of beauty'.29 Blumann believed that artistic photography incorporated

60

pe~sonal expression married to an aesthetic standard. In 1926 he wrote an article on the current state of pictor­ialism, noting trends in style, processes, and subject. He made his conservative preference obvious by illustrating the article with soft-focus images of old-world subjects by European pictorialists such as Alexander Keighley and Joseph Petrocelli. By this time he had run a sufficient amount of pictorial work in Camera Craft for at least one reader to complain that there was too much of it. Blumann admitted that pictorialism dominated the magazine's text and illustrations, but he did not apologize. Instead, he characterized pictorial work as advanced and distinctive, and, it was hoped, an inspiration for amateurs.

Blumann continued to believe in natural laws of art during his editorship of Camera Craft. He personaJly admired the paintings of Raphael, Titian, and Camille Corot, and recommended that pictorialists study art and learn to draw to improve their photographs. In 1932 he asserted that 'basic principles and the laws of Nature and Art are inalienable, inexorable, and a knowledge and conformation to their dictates is essential to the best pictorialism'.30 Pictorialists considered correct picture

composition a key element to success, an outlook re­inforced by Blumann. He defmed the concept of compo­sition, appropriately enough, with a musical analogy he borrowed from Bach: putting the right fmgers on the

S(~ismund Blumann, Editor and Photographer

right keys at the right time. Blumann believed that just as Bach was governed by harmonic laws, pictorialists were governed by visual laws - guidelines dictating that every element in a picture had an appropriate place.

Before he joined Camera Craft Blumann had expressed equaUy strict views on the purity of the photographic image, criticizing photographers for manipulating their imagery. By 1930, however, he had completely changed his view. In one of his monthly editorials he stated that he now believed creative photographers could use any means they liked to complete their pictures. He noted that Arthur F. Kales used ink, Jose Ortiz-Echagi.ie used rosin and chalk, and Leonard Misonne used crayon to hand craft their images. A year later Blumann declared:

'The clouds may be printed in or worked upon the negative or print. Two or twenty negatives may be combined. Prints may be worked up with crayons, chalks, chemicals or the knife'.31 As far as he was concerned

pictorialists could add tabasco sauce to their pictures if it helped them achieve the desired results.

It is likely that Blumann changed his mind about manipulated imagery largely because of the work of Leonard Misonne of Belgium. Misonne was one of the world's leading pictorialists, producing romantic rural scenes that glowed with contra jour lighting (figure 5). In the darkroom, he printed in clouds, accented highlights,

Figure 5. Leonard MisonIlt' (1870-1943), Ti'lIIjJs Oragc/./x, 1924. Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Ethel Morrison Van Derlip Fund.

61

Christian A. Peterson

and performed other handwork that made his photographs look very painterly. Blumann fell in love with Misonne's work, frequently reproducing it in Camera Craft, person­ally collecting examples, and cherishing European books Misonne sent of his work. When Blumann made his own pictorial photographs he followed Misonne's lead and made primarily landscapes. As late as 1939 Blumann con­tinued to praise Misonne, claiming that he held 'a place in pictorial photography on which none has or, perhaps, can encroach,.32

Blumann also regarded highly William Mortensen, another pictorialist who heavily manipulated his prints. In 1933, a few months before leaving Camera Craft, he stated, 'Mortensen is in my mind one of America's outstanding artists with regard to photography or any other medium of graphic expression' .33 He went on to say that Mortensen's work was sometimes grotesque or bizarre but always interesting and masterful. Mortensen, a fellow Californian, began his rise to prominence by writing influential articles and books shortly after Blumann left Camera Craft, so he had little opportunity to feature him in the magazine. He did, however, reproduce three of Mortensen's early images, list a few of his one-person exhibitions, and review and recommend for purchase his small portfolio of 'salon studies'.

By promoting the work of photographers such as Misonne and Mortensen, Blumann placed himself in the anti-modernist camp of photography. During the 1920s and '30s, while Blumann edited Camera Craft, some creative photographers - the pictorialists - continued to relish romantic subjects and hand work, while others­the modernists - embraced realistic subjects and straight printmaking. As early as 1922 B1umann criticized a controversial photograph of a kitchen sink by Margaret Watkins as mere record work and a stunt. A few years later he declared that thepa~~erns and designs preferred by modernist photographers' were only a temporary novelty that tin1.e would soon erase. He even went so far as to warn the public that 'much of what we see and which is offered us as pictures is not artistic but psycho­pathic. Beware lest you permit your taste to be con­tamina ted' .34

Blumann, however, was not always so extreme when it came to modernist photography. In fact, he viewed the work of Edward Weston and his influential band of straight photographers, Group £.64, with mixed feelings. Blumann demonstrated great tolerance in 1930, for instance, when he published a lead article by Weston in which the writer harshly attacked pictorial photography. Weston likened pictorial images to calendar art and stated that 'photography following this line can only be a poor imitation of already bad art' .35 Weston claimed that photographers who tried to imitate painters were mis­directed, insisting that serious workers use the inherent qualities of the medium; detail, sharp focus, and a, full range of tones. Blumann admitted he did not like Weston's subjects, referring to one as a 'Pickle in Agony', but he

was impressed with Weston's commitment to straight photography, declaring it as legitimate a cause as that of pictorialism.

In 1933 Blumann reviewed the important, single exhibition of work by Group £.64, which included Weston, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, and a few other Bay Area photographers. He was of two minds about the modernist work he saw, both praising and criticizing it. On one hand, he conceded that these photographers were using classic beauty in an up-to-date manner, were successfully pursuing personal goals, and were creating a place for 'photographic freedom'. He wrote: 'We went with a determined and preconceived intention of being amused and, if need be, adversely critical. We came away with several ideals badly bent and not a few opinions wholly destroyed'.36 On the other hand, Blumann questioned the work's ultimate worth, quipping, 'we estimate lowly the highest achievement in portraiture of gourds and peppers', referring specifically to Weston's work. He concluded: 'In a word, you will enjoy these prints. You will be impressed, astounded. But you will not love them nor want to hang them in your home. The wilful taste still prefers the too sweet Uohn M.] Whitehead and Misonne,.37 Unfortunately, Blumann did not give his readers the opportunity to judge the work for themselves, for he did not run a single illustration with his review.

Blumann's anti-modernism also affected his outlook on art and society as a whole at this energetic time in America history. He decried Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso, and their followers for tearing down established traditions of art and erecting nothing of value in their place. He asserted that much that was called new and modern in the arts had been attempted before, with equally poor results. To him this 'vicious reading matter', 'lewd pic­tures', and 'raving in music' reeked of a 'meaningless confusion of ideas and emotions,.3R Writing in Photo-Era for a change in 1927, B1umann lamented the bad habits of the country's young people: smoking, talking loudly, using make-up, and disrespecting their elders. He noted that during this period of heightened speed and progress individuals occasionally needed to slow down, ease their minds, and relax their bodies. Blumann celebrated his conservative, Victorian attitudes with no apologies. In one of his last articles in Camera Craft he proclaimed: 'It has been said that to stand still is to be left behind. That may not be so bad. If my company is traveling to hell I shall stand very still and hope to be left very £1r behind,.39

Despite his anti-modernist feelings, Hlumann updated the cover of Camera Croft at about this time. Previously the cover had featured an ornate border that framed both the magazine's name and illustration against a stark, white background. The cover of the July 1930 issue, however, sported a more modern design. It now com­prised nine rectangles, formed by a series of straight lines running off the edge of the paper. B1umann used a newer type style for the magazine's name and two different

62

Sigismund Blumann, Editor and Photographer

colours for the rectangles surrounding the reproduction in the centre. With few formal changes, the magazine's cover became much more dynamic.

Blumann never put an image of a nude on the cover of Camera Craft but, by this time, he had altered his views on photographic nudes. While he had written a few cautionary articles about the subject in the late 1910s, he now was more open to photographers turning their cameras on the unclothed figure. Nevertheless, he initially sent mixed signals about nude photography in Camera Craft. In a 1927 editorial he claimed that the magazine's policy was to not publish photographs of the unclothed figure. 'The human figure is not always divine', he wrote. 'And most of the photographers who put naked women before the camera neither know nor care about art in any particular' .40 Contrary to this editorial, however, Blumann had already reproduced Rudolf Koppitz's significant and seductive image 'Bewegungsstudie', plus nudes by California pictolialists Louis A. Goetz and Anne Brigman, whose work he pointed out was enjoyed even by his wife and daughters. Over the next few years he featured more and more illustrations by the world's leading nude photographers, most notably Frantisek Drtikol, of Czechoslovakia, and Arthur F. Kales, P. H. Oelman, and Max Thorek, of the United States. In 1933 reproductions such as these prompted a female reader to question the magazine's policy. Blumann responded in another editorial, saying that, over time, photographs of the nude had improved markedly and that the general mood towards them had softened. He indicated that he was now neutral on the subject, although offensive nudes were, of course, still unacceptable. He asserted that he had recently 'been delighted with nudes which glorifIed what was created to be beautiful. We have seen pictures of the human form divine that showed a delicacy and poetic conception. It isn't so much what is in t~e pictures as what is in the mind of the artist'41 .

During th¥ 1920s and '30s, American photographers presented their work - whether nudes or other sub­jects - in an extensive network of exhibitions, termed salons to signal their artistic nature. Camera clubs in about twenty-five cities sponsored annual salons to both show off their own best work and to view photographs submit­ted by other pictorialists from around the country and abroad. These exhibitions, which were the ultimate goal of every self-respecting pictorialist, were strictly jlllied, hung in art museums, and accompanied by il.lustrated catalogues. In the Bay Area, for instance, camera clubs in Oakland and San Francisco jointly organized salons that were presented at both the Oakland Municipal Art Galleries and the Palace of Fine Arts, in San Francisco.

Blumann wrote regularly about photographic salons, reviewing them and encouraging photographers to enter. He ran many reviews of the country's premier salon in Pittsburgh plus lead articles on the exhibitions in Los Angeles, Chicago, Rochester, and elsewhere. In 1932 photographic salons so pervaded the pictorial movement

that Blumann led off five issues of Camera Craft with exhibition reviews, showing no fear of overexposing them. In fact, a few years later he stated: 'Until there is a salon once a year in every American metropolis there cannot be an overabundance. As long as one citizen walks barefooted there cannot be an over production of shoes' .42 He pointed out that salons served three important pur­poses: demonstrating the artistic potential of photography to the general public; encouraging young photographers to advance; and acknowledging the accomplishments of leading pictorialists. He also expressed his opinion on other aspects of the photographic salon. In 1932, for instance, he warned photographers not to tailor their entries to the make-up of a salon's jury, because it made them 'an abject sycophant instead of an artist'.43 And he repeatedly spoke out against the increasing tendency of salon organizers to standardize the mount sizes they accepted. He believed that such a practice homogenized the presentation and discouraged viewers from looking at the entire exhibition.

As a critic, Blumann served on juries for exhibitions and competitions. As editor of Camera Craft, he wrote about judging photographs and continued to encourage positive criticism. He noted, for instance, that during the judging of the 1932 Los Angeles salon, in which he participated, 'there was an ever present consciousness that it was not merely inert photographs that were being passed upon but the sensibilities and hopes of human beings'. He then humbled himself, by continuing: 'We judges are just feJJows like yourself. We love the game for its own sake and we disagree or agree amongst ourselves just as you agree or disagree amongst yourselves and with us' .44 Blumann knew he was not omnipotent, stating that a picture was good on its own merits, and that no judge, critic, or editor could change its status. He did observe, however, that photographers who criticized taste makers, like himself, seemed to do so only when their pictures were rejected, never when they were accepted. And he chose not to print critiques of the pictures in the Camera Cra)1 competitions, believing that most readers wanted to hear only unabashed praise for their work.

Although Blumann paid great attention to amateur and pictorial photographers in Camera Craft he did not neglect professionals. He ran regular columns for profes­sional organizations, profIled individuals, and wrote about issues that concerned those who made their living with the camera. In the late 1920s the magazine regularly devoted space to the country's national group, the Photographers Association of America, plus the PacifIc Coast's regional organization of professionals. Monthly columns reported on the membership, conventions, and other activities of these groups. In feature articles, Blumann wrote about leading professionals, describing their methods and discussing their pictures. Among those he covered were English portrait photographer Marcus Adams, J. Anthony Bill ofCleveland , and Philip Newberg,

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Christian A. Peterson

a Los Angeles studio photographer. These photographers succeeded, according to Blumann, because they put some­thing of themselves into their work, creating distinctive images that went beyond average picture-making. He counselled professionals to maintain a clean studio, know their expenses, charge a fair price, produce quality work, and, most importantly, provide good service.

During 1927 and 1928 Blumann ran an important series of articles in Camera Craft on advertising pho­tography, a new field for professionals. Written by Leonard A. Williams, a Minnesota college professor, the articles covered aesthetics, lighting, composition, colour theory, typography, models, and equipment. They were well illustrated with reproductions of modernist advertise­

ments and photographs by Adolf De Meyer, Lejaren a Hiller, and others. The series was so well received that a year later Camera Craft compiled them into the book Illustrative Photography in Advertising, which sold well and remains today a key early work on the subject.

Blumann knew the field of professional photography through personal contact with many of its practitioners. In the 1920s he attended meetings of the Photographers Association of California, where he spoke on ethics, gave pep talks, and even performed music. He enjoyed close contact with the Pacific International Photographers' Association, helping organize its 1929 convention and receiving an honorary life membership for his 'unselfish and efficient services rendered the organization and for continuous and consistent efforts for the advancement of the photographic profession as an business and as an art'.45

He also involved himself with the nation's photographic finishers and businesses that developed negatives, and

printed pictures for the general public. The Master Photo Finishers of America awarded him their first honorary membership, and in 1930 he delivered the keynote address to the group's annual conve!1tion in St. Louis.

Blumann remained enamoured with the technique

of photography,., giving it regular coverage in the pages of Camera Craft. He included a monthJy column on technical issues, edited by H. D'Arcy Power, and wrote numerous articles himself, on developers, toners, and printing methods. As before, Blumann encouraged pietor­ialists to become familiar with a variety of films, papers, and chemicals, so that they would be fully equipped to use the appropriate process for every picture. In 1931 he wrote: 'A poet who is unfamiliar with language, a painter who has never learned to draw and color, a musician who knows no harmony, a photographer who is ignorant of exposures, development, and printing, may have the gift but certain.ly lacks the means' 46 Blumann loved to

talk shop and remained a rich source of technical informa­tion for amateurs and professionals alike.

Blumann was editing Camera Craft when the American stock market crashed in late 1929, but he made no mention of it untiJ over a year later. In a january 1931 editorial he criticized people for buying on margin, a contributing factor to the crash, and expressed a naive optimism: 'The

times have no cause to be bad. They are not bad except we make them so. Perhaps a little rest from squandering may do us good'.47 He went on to claim that the depression

was largely psychological and advised temporarily unem­ployed individuals with cameras to take advantage of the extra time they had, not to find a job, but to go out and make photographs, believing that things would right them­selves. He wrote few additional editorials on the country's economic condition, even though, according to Thomas W. High, Blumann had to depend on income from his daughters to make ends meet during the 1930s. Blumann preferred not to discuss politics in Camera Craft, but did support, in his last editorial, President Roosevelt's drive to regulate American industry, once he realized that the 'wolf is at the door' 48

Generally, Blumann expressed a positive outlook that was moral, optimistic, and religious. He claimed that idealism was, in reality, practical and necessary to get through life happily. In 1931 he wrote: 'Truth is an ideal. Honesty is an ideal. Kindness, charity, philanthropy, love of home and family, respect for traditions ... are ideas, yet how practical is their influence and effect, how real they do become when bred into our character'. 49 Though

he was raised jewish, Blumann renounced his parents' faith when they resisted his plans to marry a gentile. After he successfully wed his wife, he adopted her Christian

beliefs, championing them annually in Camera Craft. Most of his December issues included a Christmas greeting, an editorial on the meaning of the holiday, and an article on photographic Christmas presents. In his 1926 greeting Blumann suggested that Christ's birth was significant for jews, Buddhists, and Christians alike, and that, ironically, one's faith was often the 'accident of birth'. Speaking

practically, he explained how to make photographic Christmas cards and stationery and also suggested giving photographs as gifts. Such items, he assured readers, were appreciated for their handmade qualities. He also pointed out that photography itself was 'one more gift for which to thank the Creator of aU things'.5o

Blumann, who spent untold hours at his editorial desk, developed a unique writing style, taking great liberties with the English language. He refused to be constrained by the rLlles of grammar, often creating long and convoluted sentences. In addition, he developed a large vocabulary, using little-known words such as anim­adversion, eleemosynary, and ratiocination. In 1930 one of the readers of Camera Craft complained about Blumann's peculiar style of writing and even claimed that he made words up. Blumann responded with both humour and hubris: 'Now, in self defense I must be permitted to show that I am neither the first or only offender. Spenser, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Browning, Masefield, Edgar Guest, and other Rotarians have done some fancy language slinging - not just me. As a matter of fact I don't sling it so good like they does lsieJ nor so much of it. In fact I'm a mild offender. It's too bad but I can't make my pen behave'51 As a writer,

64

S(l?isllnind Billmann, Editor and Photographer

he undoubtedly felt that his personality should show not only in the content of his work but also in its form.

In addition to the substantial amount of prose Blumann wrote, he also composed hundreds of poems throughout his life. According to two of his daughters, Sigismund did not graduate from high school because he was expelled for writing poetry in maths class. As a young adult, his Home Press printed small collections of his own poems, such as The Springtinle (!f L!fe and In Many Moods, whjch he gave out to friends. And once he began writing for the photographic press he contributed poems as well as articles. In 1917 Blumann had contributed a lead article to Camera Crq{t on how poetry and photography could be combined. He had suggested that photographers find written verse to title their work, or, better yet, write their own. 'Such home-made poetry need not be great', he wrote. 'It merely need express in "vords what the artist would have the picture convey, only to a more deflllite degree. The picture and the lines lend one another a reciprocal value' .52 He reasoned that the recipient of such a photograph would not only acquire a work of visual art but also 'a taste of literature for good me;lsure'. Blumann also believed that good poems could inspire photographers to make pictures illustrating them and, conversely, that good photographs could inspire indi­viduals to write poetry. In fact, his article included a poem he wrote about one of his own images and one inspired by a photograph by his friend Percy Neymann. Later in life Blumann sent out holiday cards that paired one of his photographs with one of his poems.

Blumann contributed a few pieces of verse to Photo Era, but most of his poems appeared in Camera Craft. His fIrst one in that magazine, published in August 1921, was 'Out of Doors', an eleven-line revelry about enjoying nature with his camera, pipe, and dog. A few years later, when he became its editt?r, he began peppering the magazine with about half a dozen a year. In addition to these freestanding poems, however, he also included his own verse in virtually every monthly editorial. In late 1926, after featuring three poems in an earlier editorial, he proclaimed, 'If I cannot unload my verse in my own department of the magazine I edit, where, oh where,

' shall I hope to unbosom myself?'.53

Blumann wrote verse about a host of emotions and ideas, including youth, ageing, life, death, music, love, poverty, nature, and God. True to his flamboyant way with language, he sometimes used Latin titles, such as 'Summum Finitum' for a 1928 poem about mankind's smalJ place in the universe. In 1938 he was sufficiently accomplished to be included in Principal Poets of the WorLd, a guide to 500 English-speaking writers which indicated that his best liked poem was one called 'Christmas Snows'. Despite this recognition, however, I31umann opened the pages of Camera Craft to other poets. He proudly cham­pioned the work of Bert Leach and James Courtney Challis, as well as that of Ida M. Reed, the magazine's owner. He even included poems by inmates of San

Quentin, observing that male prisoners usually wrote abstractly, while the women wrote more emotionally. Some readers objected to such a deluge of poetry in a photographic magazine. Blumann responded by saying that good poets and creative photographers were allied in their quest for beauty, and he reprinted a poem from the very fIrSt issue of Camera Craft that had been prominently placed opposite the frontispiece, indicating the importance of verse to the magazine's founders. He made it clear that as long as he was running the magazine, poems and photographs would cohabit in its pages.

In August 1933 Blumann edited his last issue of Camera Craft. In it he included a typical mixture of pictorial photographs, technical articles, poetry, and editorial com­ment. Pictorialist Joseph Petrocelli, known for his images of Mediterranean countries, contributed the frontispiece, and the lead article was an eight-page review of the photographic salon in San Diego. Blumann wrote two pieces, one on development and one defending the Royal Photographic Society. Others addressed technical topics such as the Graflex camera, small darkrooms, and pinhole photography. There were four poems and ten regular columns, covering books, professional photographers, amatems, equipment, and the monthly competition (won by Chicago pictorialist Max Thorek). In his editorial, Blumann reminisced about photographing in Yosemite National Park and supported government organization of American industries during the current economic crisis.

Blumann gave no indication anywhere in the maga­zine that this was his last issue of Camera Craft, raising questions about the reason for his departure; it is not known whether he chose to leave or was asked to resign. In the magazine's next issue, owner Ida M. Reed intro­duced the new editor and briefly thanked Blumann with the following words: 'Since 1924 we, and the readers of this magazine, have enjoyed his contagious enthusiasm, and his wide technical knowledge of photography. He leaves with our best wishes for success and happiness'. This short, tepid appreciation and the fact that Blumann contributed nothing during the magazine's subsequent life suggest that the editor and the owner of Camera Craft parted ways over deep differences.

Blumann's abrupt departure from the magazine, how­ever, in no way compromised the pivotal place he held as a technical adviser and creative consenter during the 1930s. He was now one of the West Coast's leading photographic tastemakers, always anxious to help the amateur, encourage the pictorialist, and commend the professional. Camera Crqft and American photography in general were immeasmably enriched and strengthened by Blumann's nine years at the magazine.

Blumann as a Photographer

Blumann frequently downplayed his own ability as a photographer, claiming that his calling was as a critic. Nevertheless, he achieved success as a pictorialist in his

65

Christian A. Peterson

own' right during the 1920s and early '30s, when he was editor of Camera Craft. During this time he made creative phmographs that were published and exhibited primarily in the United States. He worked with a number of processes, because of his great technical knowledge, and he preferred photographing landscapes.

Blumann made self-deprecating remarks about his own photographs for years. As early as 1913 he noted that even though he possessed five hundred dollars' worth of chemicals, he still could not make good negatives or prints. A fevv years later he stated: 'Consider the writer, who has owned about every make and size of camera, ... who has spent precious hours in the field and in the darkroom; has tried everything and every way to get out of himself something he feels is within; but has failed' .54 He referred to himself as an 'amateur snap-shooter' and 'pseudo pictorialist', and even assured readers that it was all right for them to make poor pictures because he did as well. Blumann surmised that had he been a better photographer he never would have become a critic and editor.

It is true that most ofBlumann's creative photographs do not match the best work of many of the leading pictorialists he admired. He claimed he was inspired, for instance, by Clarence H. White, a prominent member of the Photo-Secession, and Arthur F. Kales, an important California pictorialist. He collected work by Misonne, Alexander Leventon, Max Thorek, and others who were much more accomplished than he. Nonetheless, he pos­sessed demonstrable artistic talent. In 1916 he claimed, 'I feel an impulse to express emotions in pictures ­emotions of my own in pictures made by myself. Since it is not given me to use the pencil or the brush, I use the camera,S5 In fact, Blumann decorated his own stationery and hand-crafted holiday cards for his wife. When it came to the camera he was equally ~ensitive, producing compet­ent pictorial images. And he sensed that his experience as a musician propably aided his work in creative photo­graphy, for he noted that the musical profession provided more pictorialists than any other, except medicine.

Blumann's most enduring photographic subject was the landscape. He regularly photographed the environs of Oakland, where he lived, and California's state parks and national forests. He was an environmentalist with a camera, who contrasted the 'shooting' he did with that of hunters. In 1916 he noted: 'Without injuring any of God's creatures I tramp the hills and explore the woods, quietly and peaceably, with a burden of some ten or twelve pounds of camera, plates, and tripod' .56 Many years later he wrote and illustrated a three-part series of articles on Pacific Coast parks, in which he promoted the value of rustic cabins, comfortable hiking clothes, and nature photography.

Blumann's landscape photographs show his reverence for nature and his skill for interpretation. Magazines repro­duced them as early as 1911, but those from the 1920s are more resolved. His image 'Diana's Mirror' (figure 6), for

Figure 6. Sigismund l3lumann, Diana's Mirror, n.d. Minneapolis Institute of Arts, gift of Holly and James Bogin.

instance, shows a wooded scene, made moody by deep, rich tones and grainy texture. B1umann expertly composed the image with trees along both edges and a small reflecting patch of water near the center. He was drawn to this particular setting more than once, making other equally compelling images during different seasons.

Another landscape demonstrates the degree to which Blumann was willing to manipulate the photographic image. In this untitled nocturne (figure 7), he dramatically flattens the image by suppressing details, massing dark areas, and overlaying a textured pattern. He blocked out a small spot on the negative to create a bright rising moon, which becomes the focal point of the image, and he toned prints of the image at least three different colours (green, blue, and brown), revealing the interpretive power of this technique. While someone else felt free to cut down the tree in the foreground of this scene, Blumann preferred to restrict his alterations of nature to darkroom work.

Blumann's favourite landscape photograph apparently was 'The Three Guardsmen' (figure 8), made in Washing­ton's Rainier National Park. Although he reproduced about fifteen of his own pictures in Camera Craft, this is the only one he put on the cover of the magazine, in November 1926. He contributed another photograph, two articles, and two poems to this issue but, unfortu­nately, did not discuss his cover image. Nearly ten years later he prominently reproduced it again as the frontispiece in Photo Art i\![onthly, retitling it 'Athos, Porthos, and Aramis', the leading characters in Alexandre Dumas's

66

Sigismund B/umann, Editor and Photographer

Figure 7. Sigisl11l1nd I3llll11Jnn, Ulllir/cd. n.d. Minneapolis Im[iw[e of Arts, gilt of James D. Gollin.

historical romance The Three A1usketeers, whom I31umann identified with the three towering sequoias in his picture.

Despite Blumann's ·,d<:yotion to landscape pho­tography, his most striking gr·oup of pictures was a series

of at least seven he made in the studio, sometime during the 1920s (figurres 9-11). These images show a professional

photographer posing and lighting a model, an unusual subject for him that he nonetheless used to great advant­age. On one hand, Blumann essayed the practice of photography itself in this series, while, on the other, he boldly experimented with the abstract massing of light and dark.

The photographer in the pictures "vas Philip Newberg, a dapper, Los Angeles photographer Dlumann befriended at a professional convention. Blumann must have visited Newberg's studio, where he was impressed with what he saw. He then commenced photographing Newberg adjusting lights and directing a well-dressed model against a backdrop, a routine activity for many

professional photographers. Photographers frequently made portraits of themselves and each other, but they rarely photographed everyday procedures like the one I31umann captured. The subject was so simple and obvious that most photographers never considered it.

More important than the activity shown, however, was the near abstract manner in which I31ulllann depicted it. 131umann used strong contrasts in most of the pictures to render the photographer, the model, and the lights essentially as silhouettes. He rigidly structured the images with dark borders that framed the figures and created a stage-like setting. And, as was his common practice, he printed a stippled texture into most of the series, adding

a flat, poster-like quality to the photographs. Despite the similarities between the pictures in this

series, they do not form a strict sequence where one particular image follows another. Blumann, in f.1Ct, varied their tonalities :ll1d textures so that, formally, they did not match. Tellingly, he also gave every picture a different title, from the straightfon'v'ard 'Photography' to the ques­tion, 'Fashion or Art'? Surprisingly, Blulllann did not reproduce a single image from this series in either of his magazines. Perhaps he considered them unrepresentative of his work as a whole and too advanced for his readership.

Nevertheless, they stand as his most accomplished photo­graphic images, comparing favourably with other pictorial work of the time that showed the influence of modernism.

Blul11ann exhibited his photographs only modestly, owing, undoubtedly, to his responsibilities as an editor.

67

Christian A. Peterson

Figure 8. Sigismllnd Bllll11ann, nrc 'J1lr('l' ClIcJrdsrtll'll, r. 1')2(,. Figure 10. Sigislllllnd Blulllann, Fashion or Art', n.d. Minneapolis Minneapolis lnstitmc of Arts, gift of Dr Don'lld and Alice Lappe. Institm{' of Arts, "'ift of Holly and Jallles Bogin.

Figure 9. Sigislllund I31ulllann, Thl' Wi//i.t! ili/odel, n.d. Minneapolis Figure 11. Sigislllllnd Ululllanll, J>h(l{ography, n.d. Minneapolis Institute of Arts, gift of Holly and Jailles Bogin. Institute of Arts, gift of Holly and James Bogin.

68

Sigismund Bhtmann, Editor and Photographer

He successfully submitted a few pictures from his photographer/model series to the 1931 Scottish National Salon but sent primarily his landscape work to exhibitions. Between 1923 and 1932 his pictures were accepted at photographic salons in Amsterdam; New Westminster, British Columbia; Toronto; Rochester, New York; Seattle; and Los Angeles. He claimed, like hundreds of other creative photographers, that 'the salons are my hope and objective', 57 but he apparently never got his work into such leading salons as Pittsburgh and London. In 1927 Blumann created his own one-person exhibition of about thirty bromoil prints that he travelled around the United States. Calling it 'our own bold plunge into the vortex of pictorialism' ,58 he sent the exhibition to camera clubs in Chicago, Akron, Cincinnati, and elsewhere. In New York, the pictures became part of a unique exhibi­tion showcasing pictures by editors of American photo­graphic magazines. Presented at the prestigious Camera Club of New York, the exhibition comprised contribu­tions from A. H. Beardsley, of Photo-Era; Frank F. Chambers, of Camera; Frank Roy Fraprie, of American Photography; Herbert C. McKay, also of Photo-Era; John A. Tennant, of Photo Miniatl.lre; and Blumann. Tennant reviewed the exhibition in Camera Craft, writing that all

of Blumann's prints displayed 'that poetic ardor which breaks through in whatever Mr. Blumann does or says,.59

Blumann, however, ran another review which claimed that only one picture in the entire show was worthy of exhibition and that Blumann had far to go as a pictorialist. Presumably he disagreed with this opinion but felt it deserved airing in his own magazine.

His own magazines, not surprisingly, reproduced more of Blumann's pictures than other publications. Between 1911 and 1929, he included eighteen of his own illustrations in Camera Craft. Between 1933 and 1940 he reproduced eleven of his photographs in Photo Art Monthly. He used some of the same images for both magazines however, suggesting he had a limited number of successful photographs. Other periodicals that repro­duced his work were The American Annual of Photography, which, in 1927, featured a harbour scene, and Camera, which, in March 1930, included his self-portrait (figure 1). His last known reproductions appeared in the December 1943 issue of Pop~tlar Science, illustrating an article by him on toning. Most striking among them was 'Winter at the Station' (figure 12), which showed a bleak, snow covered landscape under an ashen sky. Alternatively titled 'Dakota Weather', this image was probably made at a train stop

Figure 12. Sigismund Blumann, /If/inter at the StatiNI, n.d. Minneapolis Institute of Arts, gift of Holly and James I3ogin.

69

Christian A. Peterson

on the Great Plains, on one of Blumann's many trips to professional conventions. rt reflects both his known adversity to travel and an understandable longing for the milder weather of California.

Blumann's original photographs are characterized by distinctive features, both in mounting and identification. He usually mounted his prints on thin, cream-colored board with an embossed plate mark. Most of his exhibition prints measured 8 x 10 inches, although he occasionally made larger ones. He rejected the standard 16 x 20-inch mount, preferring the narrower format of 13 x 20 inches. Blumann marked his exhibition prints with his signature, label, or monogram. He usually signed prints in pencil on the mount, below the lower right corner of the print, in a confident stylized script. To the backs of each mount, he usually affixed a paper label (figure 13), which he may have designed and printed at his own press. Measuring 2 x 5-} inches, it included his name, address, picture title, and process. Only occasionally did Blumann mark his images with his monogram - a stylized 'SB' in a vertical rectangle. Like most other pictorialists, he rarely dated his photographs, ailowing him to submit the same picture to exhibitions for years.

Blumann used his extensive knowledge of technology and chemistry to photograph with different equipment and print in a variety of processes. In his fIrSt book, he described the portable darkroom he had built to check his film on trips. It was an aluminum box that 'Neighed less than a 4 x 5-inch camera and held trays, chemicals, and a graduate. In 1931 he claimed he owned and used no less than nine cameras, including a Graflex and a 5 x 7-inch model. He also promoted 'miniature' (35 mm) cameras like the Leica, believing they were useful tools for general photographers and pictorialists alike.

Blumann enjoyed experimenting with different pho­tographic printing processes,_championing the kallitype early on. In 1927 he used the bromoil process to make the prints in his travelling, one-person exhibition. A bromoil was created by bleaching out the image of a regular silver bromide print, chemically treating it, and then redeveloping the image with a brush charged with

oil pigment. These handcrafted photographs, natural1y, took on a distinctive, painterly appearance. Many of Blumann's prints are labelled 'lithobromes', probably a hybrid process he developed and named himself. Others he called 'pastelographs', plain black-and-white photo­graphs he hand coloured, presumably with pastels. He wrote a few articles on what he called the 'photo-etching' process, a term incorrectly suggesting photogravure. Blumann's method involved simply copying a photo­graphic image onto an intaglio plate, the result being a traditional hand-rendered etching. His own pieces in this medium are small, black-and-white etchings that do not betray the source of their imagery. In addition to all these media, Blumann used a variety of texture screens, inserting them between the negative and paper during enlargement to create lined and stippled patterns. Finally, he toned his prints, a subject he wrote an entire book on. Careful1y matching imagery and colour, Blumann made photo­graphs that were brown, green, and blue, stretching the meaning of black-and-white photography.

Photo Art Monthly, 1933-40

Blumann was out of photographic publishing for only a few months after editing his last issue of Camera Craft in August 1933. In September he wrote a letter to the editor of Camera, stating: 'Watch for a new and startling photo­graphic magazine that will set a new standard of literary value and pictorial beauty' .60 At this time 13lumann was on a 1110nth-long, 8000-mile trip across the United States, probab1ly gathering advice and support for his new endeavour. After returning to the Bay Area, he hired an assistant, and, three weeks later, put out the first issue of Photo Art Monthly, 'A Magazine Dedicated to Those Who Love the Beautiful in Photographic Art and Craft' (tigurc 14). It appeared in November 1<)33, with a care­fully chosen title that informed readers it would focus on artistic photography, on a monthly basis. Not surprisingly, Blumann's editorial approach at Photo Art Monthly would closely follow his outlook at Camera CraJi.

The first issue of Photo Art Monthly comprised articles

SIGISMUND BLUMANN

WINTER AT THE STATION

LITHOBROME.

Figure 13. Sigisl1lund 13lumann '5 label, c. "[ '1205. Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

70

Sigismund Blumann, Editor and Photographer

NO ER .1011 moronic and believes in the good taste of its readers in

PHOTOAR MONTHL.Y

SIGISMUND BLUMANN, EDITOR c.r..... I_~~_

S 2.00 per year

PHOTO ART PUBLISHER MONADNOCK BUILDING

Figure 14. Cover of Photo Ar' Monthly, November 1933. Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson.

and columns on a variery of topics Blumann felt fell within the parameters of his artistic mission. He included features on pictorial photography, toning, nature photo­graphy, the photographic '~aJon, amateurs, and photo­graphic education. English pictorialist H. Y. Summons wrote the lead article on photographing in Corsica and iLlustrated it with images made from paper negatives. Harold McMurtoch reviewed the exhibition of artistic photographs at Chicago's Century of Progress Exposition. Blumann also began a series caLled, 'Hallelujah! I'm a Snapshot Shooter', in which he addressed everyday problems common to amateur photographers.

Blumann established a number of sections in the magazine's fIrSt issue that ran most of its seven-year life. Most important was his editorial, 'From the Editor's Sanctum', which included his personal ruminations and poems. In his first editorial, he thanked others for the advice and encouragement he had received and informed readers that the magazine would be theirs as much as his. He also took a stab at Camera Craji, but did not mention his former magazine by name. 'No excuses are made, no apologies offered', he wrote. 'I now start under new auspices to again address those who enjoy a publication of the sort that accepts the popular mind as being above

matters of English, Art, and Sentiment'.61 Besides his editorial, Blumann included columns on books, camera clubs, equipment, technique, upcoming salons, and miscelJaneous photographic news. He also began an enter­taining feature called 'The Wisdom of Bazibazook', made up of his short quips about photography and life in general. Among the dozen statements he made in its first instalment was: 'That fellow Weston has a thousand critics and not a dozen equals' .62

The magazine's first cover reproduced a picture by Karma-Heinzen De B, about whom nothing is known. Blumann framed this image in thick lines that matched the bold, sans-serif type used on the cover. Proud to be running his own magazine, he now put his name on the cover. This modern design was altered a few times over the life of the magazine. In 1935 the 'P' in 'Photo' was integrated into the border of the illustration, producing a more abstract design. The next year, however, most of the cover's original design was reinstated. The last changes were made in 1938, when the illustration lost its frame and was pushed to the lower right corner of the cover.

Blumann located the offices of Photo Art Monthly in the Monadnock Building, at 685 Market Street, less than a block from the offices of Camera Craft. This building was under construction during the 1906 earthquake, but it survived and is sti]] located next to the exclusive Palace Hotel. Blumann, then 61, knew he could not run Photo Art Monthly alone, so he hired Mrs Franke A. Unger as his business manager and only employee. In its first issue, he thanked Unger for her loyalty, untiring labour, and enthusiasm, and he repeatedly acknowledged the impor­tance of her efforts to the life of the magazine.

Unger initially performed primarily administrative tasks at Photo Art Monthly, leaving Blumann with much of the writing responsibilities. Unlike at Camera Craft, he used no outside editors for the monthly columns, having to compose all of them himself. For each issue, he always wrote an editorial, usuaLly contributed a feature article, and often contributed additional, shorter pieces that were unsigned. Consequently, and not surprisingly, Blumann's voice was prominent in the magazine. He wrote twenry­seven of the first issue's fifry-five pages, for instance, and in 1934 contributed fully half of the magazine's lead articles. Numbers like these continued throughout the life of Photo Art Monthly, indicative of his drive and stamina at the rypewriter.

Despite his large presence in the magazine, BJumann wanted the pages of Photo Art Monthly to be open to the views and pictures of everyone. From the beginning, he encouraged readers to write him with their concerns and send in their photographs. In his first editorial, he claimed, 'this publication is ours, yours and mine' 63 In the next issue, he admitted that he was after every kind of individual involved with photography: readers, advertisers, and buyers. Yet, he explained that he was interested in them aLl as intimates, not just business partners: 'Most of all we

71

Christian A. Peterson

want' Friends'.64 Consequently, he usually wrote in the

first person, believing it would endear him to his readers. 'There are those who detest the singular first person 'I' when used by other than themselves', he stated in 1933. 'It has been the contention of this editor that a more intimate relationship is established, a better time is had, and a heartier friendship formed, when a magazine boldly puts aside mock modesty and bravely talks, just talks, to its readers' .65 Shortly thereafter, he was happy to report that he had received numerous letters supporting his personal tone in the magazine, from readers both domestic and foreign. Blumann ran his office the same way as he did the magazine, maintaining an open door policy at the Monadnock Building. There, he heartily welcomed all visitors to discuss issues photographic and otherwise.

Blumann ran monthly picture competitions in Photo Art lVionthly as a way of democratizing the magazine. To ensure that every taste was represented, he turned the judging over to a wide range of photographers, including, at different times, Dorothea Lange, Imogen Cunningham, pictorialist D. ]. Ruzicka, and illustrative photographer Ralph Young. Anyone could submit pictures, in either the amateur or advanced class, competing for prizes and a reproduction of their work in the magazine. Hundreds of individuals got their first, and sometimes only, recog­nition as photographers in the magazine's competitions. The amateur class competition encouraged untold numbers of beginning photographers to compare their work with that of others and to strive for creative results. Those repeatedly successful in this class moved up to the advanced category, where the competition was much stiffer. Here, nationally recognized pictorialists such as Christine B. Fletcher and Max Thorek competed, enjoying one more place to show their work. Blumann also ran a competition in the magazine solely for members of school camera clubs and, in. 1936, added a third, lower, class to the regular competiti~'n to encourage even the most inexperienged to enter.

Aware that amateurs comprised the largest class of American photographers, Blumann made sure that Photo Art Monthly appealed to them in ways other than the competition. He celebrated his own lowly status as an amateur with his series of articles, 'Hallelujah! I'm a Snapshot Shooter'. A year later, he segued this series into another one also geared to amateurs - a course in basic photographic technique, complete with review questions at the end of each instalment. He wrote frequently about photography as a mere hobby, promoting it as less expensive and more rewarding than pastimes such as golf and hunting. In 1938, Blumann admitted he had com­pletely given up making artistic, salon photographs, asserting that he was happy making casual snapshots. 'Perhaps we have arrived at something better', he stated.

'Now the pleasure of taking pictures lies in perpetuating a temporary enjoyment into a lasting joy' .6(,

As he had done in Camera Craft, Blumann continued to popularize photography by supporting photographic

education in high schools and colleges. He editorialized on the advantages of learning how to make good pictures at an early age and on the medium's use to nearly every profession. In 1935 he predicted a growing demand for photography teachers, as 'the time is nearing when every college will not only make photography an accredited course bllt will insist on it as an essential to matriculation in those courses' .67 He recommended that every school

establish a complete photography department, staffed with instructors in physics, art, and technique.

During his editorship of Photo Art Monthly, Blumann maintained his faith in the camera club as a wellspring of photographic activity. He ran a monthly column in the magazine listing camera club events and personnel, creating, in some cases, the only record of many small groups. Between 1,934 and 1940 Blumann himself showed up frequently in the event listing for California clubs, due to his standing as one of the region's senior figures. He attended gatherings at the California Camera Club, Leica Club of Oakland, East Bay Camera Club, Golden Gate Miniature Camera Club, Photographic Society of San Francisco, San Jose Camera Club, and Western Amateur Camera Conclave. At these venues, h.e gave lectures such as 'Some Unusual Pictorial Effects', introduced photo­graphers like Adolf Fassbender and D.]. Ruzicka, judged competitions, and presided over annual dinners.

By the late 1930s, when Blumann had ceased making pictorial photographs, he began to soften his attitude about the social value of camera clubs. For years he had insisted that clubs focus solely on photographic rather than social activities. As photographic organizations throughout the country began to bestow honorary and life memberships upon him, however, he came to appre­ciate the fellowship that such groups provided. 'The clubs have given me many a happy evening', he admitted in 1940. 'And for the friends made within the four walls of

our meeting place I am grateful. They are more precious than all my cameras and lenses' .68 Clubs in San Francisco,

San Jose, Chicago, and Newark were among those that recognized him. He was also honoured by leading national organizations in the United States and Britain. In 1933 he was a charter member of the Photographic Society of America, and, the same year, the Royal Photographic Society awarded him its prestigious fellowship (FRPS).

Blumann made his interest in art evident by naming Photo Art Monthly as he did. No other photographic monthly of the time contained the word 'art' in its title or was so adamant in its support of manipulative imagery. In the magazine, Blumann continued to claim that the

laws of art, beauty, and good taste were God given and not arbitrary. 'True art and real merit live through the ages and their basis remains the same', he wrote in 1934. 'Beauty, coming direct fi'om the Creator, remains immut­able' .69 He reproduced the paintings of Jean Franc;:ois Millet as the type of work that followed these precepts and could inspire pictorialists. He was particularly taken with the paintings ofJames A. Holden, about whom he

72

Sigismund Blumann, Editor and Photographer

wrote an article in 1935. In it, he indicated that Holden, whose murals were prominent in Bay Area buildings, was among the artists who judged the monthly competitions in Photo Art Monthly. Blumann expressed his desire that photographers and artists interact more and concluded his article: 'May our efforts to interest the outstanding artists in photography succeed in reciprocally interesting our photographic readers in art,.70

Blumann persisted in defending a photographer's right to manipulate his or her imagery, frequently editori­alizing on the subject in Photo Art Monthly. He observed that most people thought photographs were made by a machine, not a person. This required creative photo­graphers to 'trick' the public into seeing the medium as an art, by performing extensive hand work in their images. He wrote a long article titled, 'Cheating the Beholder', in which he claimed there was no such thing as cheating in the fme arts, for 'the end justifIes the means and a good picture covers a multitude of sins'.71 He wrote

articles on manipulative procedures such as intensifIcation, reduction, and texture screens, and claimed he personally had over 100 cloud negatives for printing the skies in his own photographs. In addition, he ran illustrated lead articles on pictorialists like Leonard Misonne, known for his oil prints; Max Thorek, acknowledged for his paper negative work; and Arthur F. Kales, revered for his bromoil prints and transfers.

Consistent with Blumann's support of manipulated imagery was his continued disdain for straight photo­graphy as an art form. He found purist photography cold and crass, rarely reproduced it in Photo Art Monthly, and predicted it would soon pass as a fad. In 1936 he wrote about the straight worker: 'You shoot at a scene with the aperture small, develop for detail, print on glossy, and get a record. It is a graphic catalog of units. A number of items accurately entered on a.sheet of glistening paper. It affects one, emotionally, about" the same as a page from a Sears and Roebl.\ck catalog'.72 He considered such workers 'misguided dillentanti', and called Ansel Adams, who was lucky enough to get one picture in the magazine, a 'travelogeur'. Edward Weston, who received substantial coverage in the competing Camera Craji, was occasionally mentioned in passing by Blumann in Photo Art Monthly, but not a single article or illustration by him appeared in the magazine.

As earlier, Blumann's anti-modernist feelings toward photography reflected his traditional attitude toward the other arts and life in general. As he aged, he futilely continued to editorialize against the growing speed of automobiles, planes, travel, fI.lms, lenses, and even eating. 'Under stress we arc becoming neurotic as a race. We are racing to our disintegration', he wrote. 'Let us live with discreet leisure lest we die speedily'.73 He objected both

to the billboards popping up on Bay Area bridges and to such modernist tendencies in advertising as bleed images, vvhich, ironically, his own magazine would use in a few years. And he still disliked the paintings of Cezanne,

Goya, and 'Sewereelism', stating that 'most of what passes for this perverted art strikes me as the screaming of maniacs' .74

By the late 1930s, however, Blumann slightly moder­ated his anti-purist stance toward photography. He noted that the debate between purists and what he called 'idealists' had softened and that the visibility of Group f.64 had diminished. He indicated that his main objection to the purist school was its claim that only straight photography could be art. But by 1938 he admitted he sensed emotion in the work ofsuch straight photographers as Fred G. Korth and Will Connell. He al.lowed Willard Van Dyke, a member of Group f.64, to judge his magazine's month.ly competition and he promoted a catholic taste that accommodated the work of both the 'Needle Sharpers' and the 'Fuzzy Wuzzies'. Ultimately, Blumann preferred the middle ground, for in his words, 'between extremes lies the happy mean' .75

Most indicative of Blumann's openness to modernism in photography was his appreciation ofJapanese-American pictorialism. California's substantial Japanese population produced many talented photographers, who used diag­onals, patterns, and elevated viewpoints in their advanced images. Blumann began promoting their work as early as 1928, when he wrote a glowing article for Camera Craft on Hiromu Kira, the leading Japanese-American pictor­ialist. He considered the Japanese natural-born pictorialists and found Kira's images particularly poetic. In Photo Art Monthly Blumann wrote about both Japanese art and Japanese pictorialism. In 1934 he explained the Japanese philosophy that life was integral to art, and he defmed appropriate terms such as Se-do, which means full of life. Four years later he wrote a long lead article on Japanese photography in which he praised the Japanese as indi­viduals as well as pictorialists. Blumann claimed he under­stood them, was fond of them, and befriended them. He

thought they outperfonned most American pictorialists both technica.lly and aesthetically, claiming, 'they have never allowed formula to interfere with inspiration, nor law to harden inspiration into mechanics. They have mood and inspirations, hopes and discouragements, senti­ment and marital spirit. They are emotional for all their outer stoicism'.76 Blumann illustrated the article with work by such practitioners as Kira, N. Matsumoto, and Victor Yamakawa.

Many of the Japanese-Americans worked as profes­sional photographers, running portrait studios or doing commercial work. Blumann, however, devoted on.ly modest attention to professional photography as a whole in Photo Art Monthly. He occasionally reviewed or pre­viewed professional conventions, such as those of the Sacramento/San Joaquin Valley association in 1937 and the Photographers' Association of America a few years later. He included isolated articles from members of the field, such as Charles Abel, the powerful executive secre­tary of the Photographers' Association of America, and Charles D. Kaufmann, partner in the leading Chicago

73

Christian A. Peterson

fIrm of Kaufmann and Fabry. In 1937 the magazine included a long article on the art of commercial pho­tography, illustrated with dramatically lit, modernist advertising images by John F. Collins, Edward Steichen, and others whose layouts were analysed. For the most part, however, Blumann focused on the concerns of amateurs and pictorialists, rather than professionals, in the magazme.

Photo Art Monthly ran its share of copy on photo­graphic processes and equipment. From the beginning, Blumann devoted a regular column to new apparatus, plus two separate ones on technique, one of which answered readers' questions. In 1935 he declared: 'The first step in the upward course that leads to being a pictorialist is, of course, the mastery of technique. One must be able to make a photograph before one can hope to make a picture with the camera,77 He wrote articles on every step of the photographic process, from exposure to print finishing. He also ran articles by other experts, such as Max Thorek, who wrote on the paper negative, and Emil Mayer, who essayed the bromoil process. In 1939 he contributed detailed instructions on the 'pastelob­rome' (distinct from his pastelograph), a method he devised of making a bromide print simulate the look of a gum-bichromate. Blumann also covered the great strides made in colour photography during the 1930s. He ran a full-colour frontispiece in early 1937 and subsequently included articles on dye-coupler prints, Dufacolor, and an Agfa process.

Photo Art Monthly covered primarily new cameras and lenses in its monthly department, 'Goods and Markets', but touched on every kind of equipment, from light meters to photographic paper. In 1937, travel photo­grapher Fritz Henle contributed an article on how he used the 35 mm camera, illustrated with his pictures of Japan and China. About th.e same time, Blumann noted the end of the mania over high speed film for such cameras and t,he continued proliferation of gadgets for them. There were so many extra viewfinders, filters, and other attachments for the miniature camera that many photographers spent more money on their accessories than the camera itself and ended up totting more equip­ment than was part of a large-format camera outfit. At one point, Blumann advised against the common practice of making one's own equipment, claiming that it often did not save the photographer money, did not yield quality results, and put factory people out of work. Inexplicably, he, nonetheless, ran articles on all kinds of home-made equipment. In the last three years of the magazine alone, he provided instructions on how to make lens shades, enlarging focusers, colour cameras, light meters, fire extinguishers, and ancillary objects like port­folios and albums.

As a photographic critic, Blumann remained commit­ted to the notion of constructive criticism in Photo Art Monthly, preferring encouragement and positive remarks. In 1934 he began writing short critiques of the competi­

tion winners, pointing out the strengths of each picture and sometimes hinting at how it might have been improved. Three years later he became bolder in sug­gesting improvements when he started showing alternative croppings and tonalities to pictures in a department he called the 'Critigraph'. Yet, late in the life of the magazine, he still believed that 'the critic who finds only the faults and enlarges upon them is destructive. He takes away all joy and brings discouragement. He is to be shunned as a contagion and he is a pestilence'.78

Blumann ran reviews in Photo Art Monthly of the photographic salons because they continued to be import­ant to pictorialists. Many issues of the magazine led off with an illustrated article on a salon - in San Francisco, Milwaukee, and Princeton, as well as those devoted solely to employees of Kodak or users of Leicas. He occasionally included more than one review to provide differing opinions, such as in 1934 when three women wrote alternative accounts of the fourth San Diego salon. While some photographers complained there were too many salons, making it hard for them to submit to all of them, Blumann disagreed, pointing out that most exhibitions had an oversupply of entries, proving sufficient interest. Throughout the run of the magazine, he also supported the salons by regularly listing upcoming venues, with their addresses, deadlines, and entrance fees.

In October 1937 Blumann moved the offices of Photo Art Monthly up three floors, into larger quarters in the Monadnock Building. He now had sufficient room to present exhibitions - mini salons - in his own space and under his own control, something he claimed he had envisioned since the beginning of the magazine, four years earlier. His plan was to present twenty-four two­week shows a year, featuring the best camera club, salon, and individual work available. This was a revolutionary move, preceded in the USA only by Alfred Stieglitz's '291' gallery, which had closed twenty years earlier, and the Julian Levy Gallery, only recently opened. Blumann, unlike his predecessors, however, was not trying to sell photographs, yet he kept the gallery's doors open during the magazine's long business hours (six days a week) to reach as large an audience as possible.

The December 1937 issue of the magazine announced the gallery to its readers with a long lead article by San Francisco photographer Fred S. Herrington. It included views of the two rooms that comprised the gallery, showing neutral-coloured walls and curtains, silk uphol­stered benches, flowers, and wall panels for the photo­graphs. According to Herrington, 200 enthusiastic people attended the opening reception for the first show, a sprawling group exhibition. Included were portrait photo­graphs by Pirie MacDonald, nudes by Buck Hoy, Philip Newberg, and Max Thorek, still lifes by Christine B. Fletcher and Hiromu Kira, landscapes by Leonard Misonne, other contributions by pictorialists Edward Alenius and Nowell Ward, and a small pastoral by Blumann himself. Herrington indicated that the show

74

Sigismund Blumann, Editor and Photographer

featured about 100 prints (the gallery's limit) by photo­graphers from Scotland, Belgium, India, China, japan, and the United States, working in numerous processes and representing schools from classic to romantic. Writing in the same issue of the magazine, Blumann indicated that his motives for opening the gallery were selfless and inclusive: 'The reason for its being is that two persons [he and his assistant, Franke Unger] feel that life holds something more than the chase for profits and they find full repayment for effort and money spent in the satisfac­tion of having done something that is above criticism and cannot be subject to impugnments of any sort. This is your gallery'.7~

I3lumann covered the gallery's exhibitions in the montWy camera club column of Photo Art Monthly, reporting after a few months that they were receiving 30 to 50 visitors a day. In 1938 he presented, among other things, the Rolleiflex, Agfa, and Kodak salons, and a one-person exhibition by local pictorialist Christine B. Fletcher. He even included prints by photographers he did not personally appreciate, such as the abstract and modern pictures of Paul Greve, who worked without a camera. Attendance climbed to an impressive 200 people per day in 1939, the year he presented one-person shows by Fred R. Archer, Adolf Fassbender, Misonne, and Thorek, plus group exhibitions of camera club work from Chicago, Indianapolis, and San Diego. Inexplicably, the magazine ceased news of the gallery in 1940, suggesting that Blumann's bold foray into organizing exhibitions lasted only two years.

Photo Art Monthly made no mention of sales at the gallery, though some must have occurred. Blumann's primary objective was to expose people to fllle photo­graphy, as was evident in another activity of the maga­zine - its 'Print Service'. Begun early in the life of the magazine, this service put individuals in touch with photographers whose work they wished to acquire, at no extra charge. Th.is was an excellent opportunity for art lovers to buy original photographs from the world's leading pictorialists. In one of its first promotions, Blumann asserted, 'there is no educational factor in art so potent as a collection of pictures. There is no greater pleasure than in owning a little salon of your own'. 80 On their own, many pictorialists exchanged photographs with one another to build significant collections, but few members of the general public are known to have actively collected creative photographs. No records of Blumann's print service exist to indicate how much it was used, and he stopped offering it after about six months. Like the magazine's gaUery, his concept of collecting photographs was ahead of its time.

Blumann ran poems in Photo Art Monthly throughout the life of the magazine, just as he had done in Camera Craji. He featured the work of other poets, wrote his own, and always included one or more in his montWy editorial. His first editorial, in fact, ended with the poem, 'To My Wife', in which he lovingly predicted dying in

his wife's arms. The next month, he included poems by Bert Leach, his daughter, Vera, and one Ethel johnson, who was inspired to write by pictures she saw in the magazine. Over the next few years, Blumann wrote verse on topics such as childhood, YOllth, God, and Mt Ranier, sometimes under Latin titles. On occasion, he created special layouts for poetry, such as in August 1936, when he gave Lucile Le Sage's 'A Paint Brush to a Violin' two full pages, with an elaborately designed border and a photographic illustration by her husband, W. Dovel Le Sage. Blumann claimed that he loved beauty in every form, and, thus, would have poetry in any magazine he edited. He received occasional letters objecting to their inclusion in Photo Art Monthly, but claimed that he received many more that were supportive, including one in 1936 from prominent portrait photographer Pirie MacDonald. He even ran the text of a few plays, such as Rowland S. Potter's 'The Souls of Men', which appeared in two consecutive issues, illustrated with photographs of it in production.

Blumann was a prolifIc writer who refused to limit himself to magazine articles, and during the run of Photo Art Monthly he wrote four books on photographic tech­nique. Photo Art Publisher, the business that put out the magazine, issued all four books, the only ones they published. This business comprised only Blumann and Unger, assuring that the author had complete control over the content, look, and feel of his books. Probably the only thing Blumann did not personally attend to was their printing, knowing that his own Home Press was too small for the job.

In late 1935, Blumann issued his Photographic Handbook, the first book from Photo Art Publisher. This was essentially a revised edition of his only previous book, Photographic Workroom Handbook, the rights for which he apparently retrieved from the Camera Craft Publishing Company. The two hardcover books were similar in content, detailing a multitude of darkroom procedures, and in appearance, measuring S-} x 5-} inches. The Photo­graphic Handbook went into a second edition, and, in combination with its predecessor, was his most successful title. Blumann received orders for it as late as 1944, at which time he claimed the book had sold over 60,000 copies. 81

In 1936, at age 64, Blumann wrote two totally new books, signalling his sustained energy and enthusiasm for photography. One was on enlarging and the other on photographic holiday cards, two areas of particular interest to him. Photo Art Publisher issued his Enlarging Manual in june 1936 as a practical guide for photographers who wished to make more than contact prints. In it Blumann covered apparatus such as negative carriers, lenses, and easels, and procedures like focusing, dodging, and devel­opment. He also included a formulary and advertisements for products he presumably approved of. The book ran to 76 pages, measured a handy 6} x 5 inches, and featured

75

Christian II. Peterson

a textured cover that was plasticized to protect it in the darkroom, where the author wished it to be used.

Later the same year, Photo Art Publisher released Photographic Greetings: How to Make Them, Blumann's most intriguing book. This title, unlike all his others, went beyond pure technique, discussing and illustrating a multi­tude of custom cards photographers could make them­selves. B1umann noted in the book's preface that although manufactured photographic cards were available he believed that home-made cards were much preferable: 'They are intended to carry to the recipient a sense of having had worked into them an affection that made labor a pleasure. They should be personal and individual­ized as no factory could make them. Something truly from you, your hands, your skill, your feeling, to those whom you hold in affectionate remembrance,82

The book was issued in time to encourage readers to make Christmas cards, but many other holidays and occasions "vere also covered: New Year, Easter, Thanks­giving, birthdays, engagements, anniversaries, bon voy­ages, birth announcements, and mother's and father's days. In every case, Blumann recommended designing a card

and affixing a small photographic print of an appropriate subject. He also explained a variety of techniques to further customize each card, including cut-outs, bevelling, embossing, deckle-edges, borders, and ribbon-tying. Because the pictures were necessarily small he asserted that the images should be sharp and crisp, not soft like full-size, exhibition prints. Nevertheless, he illustrated the book with pictures by pictorialists Edward Alenius, Gustav Anderson, Nicholas Boris, and Christian B. Fletcher. These images were combined with printed type and borders to make pleasing graphic designs. Photo,,?raphic Greetings, unfortunately, did not meet with popular success. Writing to his son-in-law in 1944, Blumann indicated that the book ha9 'flopped', not selling out even its fIrst printing of 10 000 ~opies.

Blumann':s fmal book, Toning Processes (figure 15), appeared in 1939 and represented his return to pure technique. The book was an exhaustive handbook on every type of toning process the author knew about, packed into a concise eighty-eight pages. Though the material was highly technical, Blumann wrote the text and formulae so it was accessible to the average photo­grapher, the goal of all his writing. In it he detailed numerous blue, red, green, ;md brown toners, plus selen­ium and sepia. He covered a multitude of metallic formulae, as well as bleach toning, double toning,

mechanical toning, multiple toning, one-solution toning, pigment toning, salt toning, warm toning, and others. The book matched the two previous books in size and format, completing a handy set of three little darkroom handbooks. Its cover, however, was graphically the strong­est, featuring a black triangle in one corner and its publisher's logo in another.

Blumann, naturally, promoted his own books in the pages of Photo Art Monthly. He reviewed them as they

Figure 15. Cover of Toning Processes, Photo Arc Publisher, San Francisco, 1939.

were issued, sometimes listed them again in the book section, and pushed them in display ads. He ran full page advertisements for the 'Photo Art Library', offering the books singly or as a group. In a September 1940 ad he declared, not so modestly, 'These are not just books but Photo Art books. Written by an accepted authority in a way to make them serve best'. He also called them 'Standard and Classic'. He reviewed and promoted books by others as well, running in 1937, for instance, a full

page with the heading, 'You Should Read These Photographic Books', which listed titles by Ansel Adams,

Ivan Dmitri, and Franklin I. Jordan. Unlike other American magazines, however, Photo Art Monthly did not sell books other than its own. Camera Craft, American Photoj?raphy, and others offered virtually every photo­graphic title available, as an extra source of income. But Blumann thought this was unfair competition with photo

supply stores and he regularly directed readers to purchase the titles they wanted there. In 1936, he responded to the suggestion that his books were underpriced at 75 cents each by saying he was not in photography for profit and that all revenues from his book sales remained in the business. Given the economic conditions of the 1930s, this was an altruistic stance.

The Second World War began overseas in the last years of Photo Art Monthly, a world condition Blumann could not entirely ignore in the magazine. Because he was an optimist and the United States was not yet involved, however, he mentioned it as little as possible.

76

He ran no articles on the situation, preferring to editorial­ize on it occasionally, such as in 1938, when he expressed his sadness over the rude treatment of some Japanese­Americans. In late 1940, however, he more regularly responded to the conflict in Europe. In his last editorials, Blumann discouraged fear and promoted faith in the forces of good. Rather naively, he promoted art and photography as a means of retaining world peace. 'The Brotherhood of Man is vvoefully forgotten', he wrote, 'and our only hope is that the Brotherhood of Art may, with our assistance, survive in sufficiency to offer some­thing to start with and build upon when sanity once again returns to earth,.83 He suggested that people use their cameras to stay cheerful and that every soldier be issued one, to occupy his off-duty hours and divert him from 'evil influences'. If Blumann had sti]] been publishing Photo Art Monthly in December 1941, when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, he may have sobered up to the harsh realities of the situation, but the magazine ceased before the United States was drawn into the war.

Blumann knew that both he and his magazine would not live forever. He acknowledged his own mortality in Photo Art Monthly in 1936, about halfway through its run. He wrote a lead editorial early that year about the recent passing of three of his close friends in photography, noting that he was older than all of them. The same year he wrote another editorial in which he claimed that when he died, he would still be young at heart, for he had given to others, experienced love, and was interested in young people. In 1939, though, he was a bit more reflective, writing editorials such as 'Reminiscing', in which he said he would happily trade his memories for youth. Fortunately, Photo Art J\![onthly died before Blumann, avoiding the simultaneous death of the maga­zine and its editor, a not uncommon occurrence in publishing.

The last issue of Phoio Art Monthly appeared 111

November 1940, its 85th instalment. Its contents were typical: articles by pictorialists such as Bernard G. Silber­stein, a technical piece by Blumann, poems, reproductions of competition winners, and regular columns on camera clubs, salons, equipment, and books. Blumann's editorial gave no indication this was the magazine's last issue, suggesting that circumstances had changed quickly. On 22 November, 1940, Franke Unger, Blumann's assistant, sent out a form letter to subscribers, stating: 'Due to existing conditions, Photo Art Publisher has suspended publication of the magazine, Photo Art J\![onthly, with the November 1940 issue, until further notice' 84 She

expressed thanks to subscribers, indicated that copies of Dlumann's books were still available, and pointed out that subscription refunds were enclosed.

A couple of important factors - both beyond Blumann's control - contributed to the demise of Photo Art Monthly. First of all, he lost Unger, his right-hand woman at the magazine. About the time of her November letter, she left San Francisco to live in New York with

Sigismund Blumann, Editor and Photographer

her new husband, pictorialist Adolf Fassbender. Blumann was either overwhelmed or incapable of replacing her, as Unger later recounted that he was ill at the time and that, as a consequence, she was virtually running the maga­zine 85 The second, equally significant, factor was the war. As Thomas W. High pointed out to me, many of the contributors and advertisers for the magazine were European. As the war expanded, Blumann found it increasingly diffIcult to communicate with individuals from such countries as England and Austria and it became unpalatable to advertise products from German companies like Agfa and Leica. Given these personnel and financial challenges, Blumann acquiesced to the end of Photo Art Monthly - his final publishing project and the one most closely associated with his name today.

Last Years

Blumann remained interested in photography after closing down Photo Art Monthly in 1940, but primarily on a personal level. During the Second World War, he wrote frequently to his son-in-law, William A. High, about his continued escapades in the darkroom. 86 High, appro­priately enough, was serving as a military photographer and Blumann's letters sometimes supplied technical infor­mation that High had requested. In addition, Blumann told his son-in-law about his reworking old negatives to make pictorial photographs, about his interest in new photographic plasticizers and detergents, and how to meet old friends of his in England, such as the important photographers J. Dudley Johnston and Alexander Keighley.

Blumann continued to receive newsletters from at least three Bay Area camera clubs, although it is not known whether he attended any meetings. In December 1943, Popular Science published his last known article, 'Color Moods for Your Photographs'. In it, nIumann posited that most black-and-white photographs could be improved by toning, and he gave numerous formulae and instructions for their use. The magazine reproduced four of his classic photographs - landscapes and 'Winter at the Station' (see figure 12). In fact, Blumann could have written this concise four-page article at almost any time during his thirty-year career, suggesting the timelessness of his contributions to photography.

In 1944 Blumann professed to his son-in-law that 'doing nothing is not a Blumann guality'.87 In addition to staying active in his darkroom, Blumann pursued other hobbies and helped run the Davis Street house in Oakland, where he sti]] lived with his wife and two of his four daughters, who never married or moved away. Since his daughters worked and Mrs Blumann was not well, Blumann performed many of the household chores, reportedly even doing the ironing. The family drove regularly to Golden Gate Park for picnics and to movie theatres for double-bills. Thomas W. High, Blumann's grandson, recalls playing rummy with his grandfather and

77

Christian A. Peterson

noted his ever-present pipe, a fixture of Blumann's image throughout his life.

On 8 July, 1956, at age 84, Sigismund Blumann died of heart failure in his home. His passing was briefly noted by a few photographic magazines, but his influence had clearly waned.88 Indeed, Blumann's time was the 1920s and '30s, when he played a key role in both shaping and documenting the foment of American photography in all its guises - professional, amateur, and pictorial.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the following individuals for providing information, assistance, and photographs: James Bogin, Merle Bogin, James D. Gollin, Nancy and Thomas W. High, Tom Jacobson, Donald Lappe, Michael P. Mattis, Amy Rule, and Peter E. Palmquist.

Notes

1. Blumann's death certificate lists 13 Septembet as his birth date, while his birth certificate lists 14 September. Thomas W. High, Blumann's grandson, kindly supplied this information and many other personal facts abollt Blumann in an interview with the author, 17 January, 2000, and in his biographical manuscript, 'Sigismund (Simon) Blumann'.

2. Sigismund Blumann, 'Constructive, Helpflll Criticism', Photo-Era 33 (September 1914), 125.

3. Blumann and Tillmany, At Home Portraiture, Oakland: Blumann and Tillmany, c. 1910, llnpaginated.

4. Ibid. 5. Sigismund Blumann, 'Laboratory Work in Photography', Camera Craft

20 (May 1913), 225. 6. Sigismund Blumann, 'Home Sensitizers and Their Application', Camera

Craft 21 (October 1914), 495-502. 7. Sigismund Blumann, 'A Proposed Injustice', Camera Craft 21 (November

1914),550-52. 8. Sigismund Blumann, 'Nancy Ford Cones: The Work and Personality

of a Remarkable Woman', Wilsall's Photographic Magazine 51 (November 1914), 469-75.

9. Sigismund Blumann, 'Constructive, Helpful Criticism', Photo-Era 33 (September 1914), 122.

10. Sigismund Blumann, 'Photography ;l Fine Art', Camera Craft 22 11. Ibid. 12. Sigismund BlllID;lnn, 'Is There a Place Left for Straight Photography",

Photo-Era 34 (January 1915), 15. 13. Sigismllnd Blumann, 'Organizing a Camera Club', Camera Craft 22

(October 1915, 394. 14. Sigismund Blumann, 'The Nude in Photography', Camera Craft 24

(April 1917), 149. 15. Sigismund Blumann, 'The Human Form in Photography', Photo-Era

40 (May 1918), 247. 16. Hilton F. Burgiss [Sigismund Blumann], 'Doctor Percy Neymann and

His Critic', Camera Craft 25 (Augllst 1918). 299. Thomas W. High's copy of this article has Blumann's handwritten note that he was, in [,ct, its author.

17. Sigismund l3!umann, 'A New Plan for Salon Hangings', Photo-Era 41 (October 1918), 195.

18. Sigismllnd Blumann, 'Hobbies', Photo-Era 47 (August 1921), 82. 19. Sigismund Blumann, 'Photography for a Living', Photo-Era 49 (October

1922), 192. 20. Sigismund Blumann, 'Laws of Art Versus Individual Taste', American

Amlllal oJ Photography 1922, 142 and 144. 21. Sigismund Blumann, 'The San Francisco Salon', Photo-Era 49

(September 1922), 124-25. 22. [Sigismund l3!umannl, 'Under the Editor's Lamp: The Amenities of

Literature', Camera Crqft 37 (July 1930), 345. 23. Sigismllnd Bllimann, 'It is Good to be a Photographic Editor', Photo­

Era 54 (January 1925), 5. 24. [Sigismund Blumann]' 'Under the Editor's LImp: The Editor', Camera

Craft 37 (April 1930), 188.

25. [Sigismund Blumann], 'Are We Too High-Brow", Camera Cra/i 33 (April 1926), 181.

26. [Sigismund Blumannl, 'Under the Editor's Lamp: The New Year', Camera Craft 36 (January 1929), 29.

27. [Sigismund Bllimann]. 'Under the Editor's Lamp: Art and the Camera', Camera Cra/i 39 (September 1932), 391.

28. [Sigismund B1umann], 'Club Notes: Join a Cllib or Start One', Camera Craft 39 (December 1932), 523.

29. Sigismllnd Blumann, 'Pictorial Photography: National and Local Characteristics', Camera Craft 40 (September 1933), 355.

30. [Sigismllnd Bilimann]. 'Our Monthly Competition', Camera Craft 39 (Jllne 1932), 254.

31. Sigismund Blumann, 'Pictorial Devices', Camera Craft 38 (October 1931), 474.

32. Sigismund Blumann, 'Prints of the Year', Photo Art Monthly 7 (March 1939), 112.

33. [Sigismund Blumann], 'Cllib Notes: Mortensen Salon Studies Portfolio', Camera Craft 40 (May 1933), 216.

34. [Sigismund Bllimann]. 'Under the Editor's Lamp: The Contamination of Taste', Camera Craft 40 (June 1933), 249.

35. Edward Weston, 'Photography - Not Pictorial', Camera Craft 37 (July 1930),313.

36. Sigismllnd Blumann, 'The f.64 Group Exhibition', Camera Craft 40 (May 1933), 199.

37. Ibid, 200. 38. ISigismund Blumann], 'Under the Editor's Lamp: What is this

Modern", Camera Craft 39 (November 1932), 478. 39. Sigismllnd Blumann, 'Scorching the Royal Photographic Sociery',

Camera Craft 40 (August 1933), 333. 40. ISigismund Bilimann], 'Under the Editor's Lamp: The Nude in

Photography', Camera Craft 34 (April 1927), 190. 41. [Sigismllnd Bilimann], 'Under the Editor's Lamp: The Ubiquitous

Nude', Camera Craft 40 (March 1933), 120. 42. [Sigismund Blumann], 'From the Editor's Sanctum: How Many Salons

are Sufficient", Photo Art MOllthly 5 (October 1937), 503. 43. Sigismund Blumann, 'Pictorial Devices', Camera Craft 39 (June

1932), 238. 44. [Sigismllnd Blumann], 'Ollr Monthly Competition', Camera CraJi 40

(February 1933), 72. 45. 'PacifiC International Photographers' Association', Camera Craft 32

(December 1925), 603. 46. [Sigismund B1umann]. 'Under the Editor's Lamp: The Importance of

Technic', Camera Craft 38 (March 1931), 138. 47. [Sigismund Blumann], 'Under the Editor's Lamp: How Bad Are These

Times", Camera Craft 38 (January 1931), 35. 48. [Sigismund Blumann]. 'Under the Editor's Lamp: And Now YOli Must

Organize to Have a Voice', Camera Craft 40 (August 1933), 342. 49. ISigismllnd l3lumann], 'Under the Editor's Lamp: Are Ideas Bunk"

Camera Craft 38 (October 1931), 496. 50. [Sigismllnd Blumann]. 'Photography', Camera Craft 33 (March 1926),

134. 51. ISigismllnd Bilimann], 'Under the Editor's Lamp: The Amenities of

Literature', Camera Craft 37 (Jllly 1930), 345. 52. Sigismund Blumann, 'Poetry and Photography', Camera Craft 24 (July

1917),270. 53. [Sigismllnd Blumann]' 'Under the Editor's Lamp', Camera Craft 33

(September 1926), 435. 54. Sigismund Blumann, 'Photography for its Own Sake', Camera Craft 23

(September 1916), 366. 55. Sigismund Blumann, 'The Amateur Photographer', Photo Era 36

(February 1916), 63. 56. Ibid. 57. [Sigismllnd Blumann], 'From the Editor's Sanctum', Photo Arr Momhly

2 (February 1934), 89. 58. [Sigismllnd Blumann], 'Club Notes: The Blumann One Man

Collection', Camera Craft 34 (July 1927), 352. 59. John A. Tennant, 'The July Exhibition of the Camera Cilib of New

York', Camera Craft 34 (September 1927), 431. 60. 'News and Notes',Camera 47 (September 1933), 213. 61. [Sigismund Bilimann], 'From the Editor's Sanctum', Photo Art l\!lomhly

1 (November 1933), 39. 62. [Sigismund Blumann]. 'The Wisdom ofBazibazook', Photo Arr Momhly

1 (November 1933), 18. 63. [Sigismund Bilimannl, 'From the Editor's Sanctllm', Photo Art MOllthly

1 (November 1933), 39. 64. [Sigismund Bllimann], 'From the Editor's Sanctum', Photo Art l\!lOllthly

1 (December 1933), 99. 65. [Sigismund Blumann], 'From the Editor's Sanctum', Photo Art Momhly

1 (November 1933), 39.

78

66.� [Sigismund Blumannj. 'From the Editor's Sanctum', Photo Arl MOllthly 6 (August 1938). 401.

67.� [Sigismllnd Blumannj, 'Under the Editor's Sanctum: Photographic Teachers, Are You Ready", Ph"", ArllVlollthly 3 (August 1935),412.

68.� [Sigismund Blunl"nnj, 'From the Editor's Sanctum: What I Have Gained from Clubs', Photo Art IVlonthly 8 (July 1940), 369.

69.� Sigismund Blutllann, 'The Fourth Annual S,," Diego Saloll', Photo Art ivlonthly 2 (June 1934), 255.

70.� Sigislllund B1um,mn, 'James A. Holden, Painter', Photo Art MOrlth!y 3 (May 1935), 228.

71.� Sigismund Blnm,,"", 'Cheating the Beholder', PJwto Art l"IOlllhly 8 (April 1940), 171.

72.� [Sigismund Blummn]' 'FrOln the Editor's S"ncrum: Taste Versus Judgement', Pholo Art MOlltilly 4 (June 1936),293.

73.� [Sigislllllnd Blununnl, 'FrOIll the Editor's S"ncrum', Phoio Arl Monthly 6 (August 1938), 401 and 402.

74.� [Sigismund Blum"nn!. 'From the Editor's Sanctum: Surrealism and D"da', Photo Art MOrltilly 6 (Janllary 1938), 32.

75.� fSigislllund Blumann], 'From the Editor's Sanctutll: Attitudes Towards Photography', Pholo Art Monthly 6 (October 1938),504.

76.� Sigismund Billmann, 'Japanese in Photogr;1phy', Photo Art Monthly 5 (July 1937), 322, 324.

77.� [Sigismund Blum;1nn], 'From the Editor's Sanctum: Learning Pictorial Photography', Pholo Art Monlhly 3 (July 1935), 350.

Sigismund Blumann, Edilor and Pholographer

78.� [Sigistllund Blumann]' 'The Wisdom of Bazibazook', Photo Art Monthly 7 (June 1939), 278.

79.� fSigismund Blum"nnl, 'Camera Club Jottings', Phot" Art Monthly 5 (December 1937), 617.

80.� 'Print Service Department', Pholo Art Monthly 2 (J,,"uary 1934). "dvertisillg page.

81.� Sometirne after I'holo Art MOrltilly ce"sed public"tion, Blurnann sold the relmining copies of all his books to Willoughby's, ;1 photogr;1phic supply Store in New York. SigislTlund Blum"nn to William A. High, 15 December, 1944. Courtesy of Thomas W. High.

82.� Sigismulld Blumanll, Pholo)!mph;( Greetillgs: HOl/! 10 M"ke Them, S'\I1 Francisco: Photo Art Publisher 1936, unp"ginned prefrlCe.

83.� [Sigisrnund Blumannj. 'From the Ediror's Sanctum: In These Troubled Times', Photo Art Momilly 8 (July 1940), 370.

84.� Franke Unger, letter, 22 November, 1940, Adolf F"ssbender ",chive, Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Arizona.

85.� Fr"nke F"ssbender [Unger], taped convers"tion with James Bastinck, (.1987.

86.� I am grateful to Thomas W. High for providing selected copies of these letters.

87.� Sigismllnd Blumann to Wilh""1 A. High, 15 July, 1944, courtesy of Tholllas W. High.

88.� Brief obituaries for Blumann appeared in PSA journ,,! 22 (September 1956), 43, and Pr~fe"";"'lQf Phot.ogmphcr 83 (December 1956), 18.

79