Hugo Erfurth; Franz Blei; Staatliche Landesbildstelle Hamburg; collection on the history of photography; paper; oil print; image size: height: 22;6 cm; width: 16;4 cm; signed and dated; in lead: Hugo Erfurth 1914; inscribed: verso yellow cardboard: in lead: LBH; stamp: verso yellow cardboard u. right: handwritten with ballpoint pen added: 311; inscribed: on verso light cardboard and left: with black felt-tip pen: Hugo Erfurth 1914; No. 311 oil print; in lead next to it: Franz Lead? inscribed: recto passepartout cardboard and: in lead: Hugo Erfurth; Franz Blei 1914; Bromoil print; portrait photography; man; cigarette; portrait; historical person; writer; poet; author; arm positions; gestures; eyeglasses; glasses; half-figure portrait; Franz Blei; At the beginning of the 20th century Hugo Erfurth is one of the most famous professional photographers in Germany; along with Rudolph D黨rkoop and Nicola Perscheid. After completing an apprenticeship as a photographer; he opened his own studio in Dresden at the age of only 22. Soon Erfurth orientated himself towards the up-and-coming pictorialist photography; participated in numerous amateur photographic exhibitions from 1894 onwards and managed to make a name for himself both as an artistically ennobled amateur and successful professional photographer. Portraits are central to his work; which he began taking in 1906 in his new studio; a classicist palace; in a stylishly elegant ambience; appealing to the wealthy bourgeoisie. He also produced numerous portraits of famous personalities; including K鋞he Kollwitz; Otto Dix and Joachim Ringelnatz. While his studies around 1905 still show full-length figures depicted in an atmospheric way; from the 1920s onward the focus is on the face; which is photographed against a simple monochrome background. Here; his pictorial approach corresponds to the portrait of classical modernism; whereby the technique of oil printing emphasizes the softness and materiality of the pigments and at t