EHRHARDT, Alfred - Das Watt

Personal statement of the German Bauhaus photographer, Alfred EHRHARDT

"'Here, as has been the case for thousands of years to the present, all the elemental forces work in unison, forming and constituting a landscape whose grandeur, sublimity and solitude can be compared to the first days of creation.'" (Alfred EHRHARDT)

Background information

"The strip of sand between land and sea described in this way by Bauhaus photographer Alfred EHRHARDT, bordering the German North Sea coast, modeled by wind, storms and sun, is the subject of the photo book 'Das Watt' (The Mudflats), published as early as 1937 and reissued as a facsimile volume in 2013. In addition to other outstanding photo volumes of that time (see the anthologies on German photo books 'Autopsie 1+2' or 'Deutschland im Fotobuch' by Manfred Heiting (ed.), the photo volume 'Alfred EHRHARDT is also considered photo book classic.

Content

"The reproduction of the photo volume 'Das Watt' by Alfred EHRHARDT faithfully adheres to the original version of 1937. The trilingual new edition makes the classic, which has long been unavailable, accessible to a wide audience again." (free translation of the publisher's text, © Éditions Barral, 2013)

Book Review

"'The Mudflats' is an attractively designed and finely printed book - An island of quiet beauty in a cultural sea that was becoming increasingly barbaric." (freely translated, © Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, in The Photobook. A History. Vol. 1)

About the German photographer Alfred EHRHARDT (1901-1984)

Photo books by and about the work by Alfred EHRHARDT