Paris, Musée de l’Homme, 1936

Erwin’s visitor’s card at the Musée de l’Homme, 1936-1937 (photo H. Lehmann)

Gou (or Gu), God of war Fon iron sculpture (provenance : Dahomey –Benin/ Abomey Museum) with the anthropologist Michel Leiris, in front of the Trocadéro, Paris,1936. Inv.number BWH995.

Close-up of Gu with symbols on his headress (hook, spear, sickle,bolt…today, Gu is the god of drivers and mechanics). Inv. number BWY1182 photographed in 1936

Same as 4. Inv number BWH302 photographed in 1936

The discreet charm of Anthropology by Irene Albers (Konstanz University press 2018)

Photograph by the ethnographic museum of Ebo, god of war around 1895. The sculpture still has all its parts.

Dogon sculpture (same as 10) but complete (1,32m tall)

Double page from My 100 Best Photos, Gu on the left, Eugene O’Neill (1943) on the right.

Double page from My 100 Best Photos, Dogon Head on the left, Laurette Taylor’s Head (1945) on the right.

Double page from My 100 Best Photos, Hitler’s Mug (1933) on the left, Crystal skull (1936) on the right

Erwin Blumenfeld was interested by primitive art. He arrived in Paris at the beginning of 1936 and went to photograph the African and Aztec sculptures at the Musée de l’Homme (now Museum of quai Branly-Museum of Arts Premiers). His visitor’s card to the museum has his portrait by Henri Lehmann on it.

One of his subjects was Gu, God of war. In one image Gu is holding the hand of Michel Leiris the anthropologist. On another take with Leiris it can be noted that the sculpture is outdoors, presumably in front of the Trocadero, possibly just returning from the 1935/36 exhibit of African Art at the Museum of Modern Art in the United States.

Man Ray photographed the whole Dogon wood sculpture of a hermaphrodite from Soudan (Mali), whereas Blumenfeld framed just its head to a striking effect as « portrait of a sculpture ».

The purportedly aztec crystal head, that was much later ascertained to be a 19th century sculpture in crystal provided by an antiquarian Eugène Boban, was photographed many times under all possible angles. It was thought to be an authentic aztec head representing the god of death, Mictlantecutli until the 1990’s.

These three photographs found their place in the book « My 100 best photos » composed by Blumenfeld and published posthumously (Benteli Verlag 1979, Rizzoli 1981, White Note 2013). In this book, the photographs are placed by pairs.

Gu faces Eugene O’Neill, the playwright. The Sudan Hermaphrodite’s head is opposite Laurette Taylor, actress in the Glass Menagerie in 1945 and the fake aztec crystal skull faces Hitler’s Mug shot from 1933, a montage in which Blumenfeld superimposed a human skull and Hitler’s portrait found in the press.