Born in 1967 in Taxenbach, Austria, Blum grew up in Germany. “Since I was four years old, I knew I was going to be an artist”, says Sylvie, who studied fashion design before taking a modeling job at the age of 19. Entering the world of artistic photography from the other side of the camera, Sylvie Blum worked as a model for over 10 years, being the cameras subject for highly acclaimed photographers such as Helmut Newton, Andreas Bitesnich, Jean Loup Sieff, and especially Günter Blum, becoming his muse and eventually wife. It’s under his mentorship that Sylvie Blum learned the magic of the darkroom and lighting, gained a perfectionist’s taste for quality and almost spiritual detail in composition. Sylvie took care of Günter through a terminal illness until his untimely death in 1997. From that time onwards, she went about changing her perspective by standing behind the camera, steadily gaining international acknowledgement.
Blum’s first published attempt was an ambitious series of self-portraits Venus selbst, made with an old Polaroid camera. Nudes, her second book appeared in 2002, as well as another book called Hotel Orient from the name of the hotel where she lived for a year and half. While in the former series the photographer revisits, in her own way, the classical nude, the latter is built around the idea of intimacy inspired by the private cabinets and left to express the erotic dreams of the men and women who posed for her.
Undoubtedly inspired by the classic nude photography of the 20s and 30s, Sylvie Blum gives her images something modern and perfects the fine art of the erotic with utmost aesthetic quality. In a few years, advanced by her exceptional biography, she has found her spot in contemporary photography. In 2005 Sylvie relocated to the US, soon working on different art projects, both black & white and color, dedicated to female and male body. In 2008 she produced her Big Cat series, showing naked woman surrounded by lions and tigers. In 2011, her 5th book Naked Beauty saw the world. In 2012 the Fahey Klein Gallery exhibited Sylvie Blum’s work together with iconic photographer Herb Ritts. Christie's NY introduced her art work in 2014 to a broad collectors’ audience, selling 400 prints of her work from different series of the past 15 years in her career as an artist. Today the author’s residence is in Los Angeles, where she works “like a spider in the web catching these beautiful models to work with”.
The works of Sylvie Blum are highly evaluated by the art critics and experts. There’s no exaggeration in British Maxim calling her “the Ansel Adams of the nude female form”.
Starting March, 11th, 2016 until April, 14th, 2016 the selected works of Sylvie Blum will be available for view and purchase in Brucie Collections gallery at Sichovykh Striltsiv Street, 55-b , Kiev.
