Alfred Ehrhardt - Das Watt ("THE MUD", FIRST PRINTING, ORIGINAL DUSTJACKET) - 1937

PLEASE ENJOY the ONE-SELLER-AUCTION by 5Uhr30.com (Ecki Heuser, Cologne, Germany) -
with INTERNATIONAL PHOTOBOOKS from my PRIVATE COLLECTION and from RECENT ACQUISITATIONS.

A PERFECT EXAMPLE FOR THE IMPORTANT PERIOD OF:
'New German objectivity' ('Neue deutsche Sachlichkeit', Albert Renger-Patzsch, Alfred Ehrhardt and others).

TRUE FIRST PRINTING of the SCARCE PHOTOBOOK CLASSIC by German photographer Alfred Ehrhardt (there was a reprint much later).

With the VERY SCARCE ORIGINAL DUSTJACKET.

Mentioned as one of the most important photobooks ever published, here:
Martin Parr, The Photobook, vol 1, page 112.

This is a lot by 5Uhr30.com (Ecki Heuser, Cologne, Germany).
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Verlag Heinrich Ellermann, Hamburg, 1937. First edition, first printing.

Hardcover with dustjacket. 221 x 289 mm. 112 pages. 96 black and white photographs. Photos: Alfred Ehrhardt. Introduction by Dr. Kurt Dingelstadt. Text in German.

Condition:
Book inside all title, all text and all photo pages fresh and flawless, clean with no marks and with no foxing; only first and last blank page lightly foxed. Book outside well preserved by the jacket; front cover foxed. Dustjacket impressive, but in poor condition with various missing parts, various tears (partly taped from behind) and creases. Overall good condition.

Fantastic German photobook classic in the very rare first printing -
with the extrem rare original dustjacket (very hard to find in any condition).

"Alfred Ehrhardt’s photographs are, in the broadest sense, images of nature. His interests lie in the abstract sand structures in the tidelands and dunes of the Curonian Spit, traveling around Iceland, photographing crystals, shells, and corals, and working with micro photography. Other areas of focus include photographing works of sculpture as well as regional themes developed parallel to his work in film.
Alfred Ehrhardt’s first photographic series Das Watt, Die Kurische Nehrung, Kristalle (The tidelands, the Curonian Split, crystals), as well as Muscheln und Schnecken (Mussels and snails), combines the photographic leanings of New Objectivity and New Vision. His extreme cropping isolates details from their actual contexts, thereby dissolving the structure of the image into abstraction. Ehrhardt’s deliberate use of intense lighting achieves powerful light-dark contrasts and thus clear compositional lines.
The exacting compositions of his photographs reveal Ehrhardt’s artistic training. His preliminary-course studies at the Bauhaus in Dessau under Josef Albers are manifested in both his painting and photography in his preoccupation with material characteristics and surface structure. As a trained musician, his mastery of rhythm, dynamics, and counterpoint in the structure of the image rivals that of Paul Klee or Wassily Kandinsky. Following Klee, who defines the study of nature as the starting point of artistic creation, Ehrhardt’s photographs of landscapes and natural phenomena seek to depict nature’s »elemental primal forces« and the »absolute laws of all phenomena.« His intent is to convey that man is only part of an »overwhelming, timeless« nature. It is not without reason that Alfred Ehrhardt was referred to in his day as a »natural philosopher with the camera."
(Alfred Ehrhardt Foundation)