Sasha Stone. a Berlin photographer from Russia (and New York)

Sasha Stone, born Aleksander Steinsapir in Saint Petersburg, Russia (1895 – 1940) was a successful photographer, working closely with his Belgian wife, Cami Stone (born Wilhelmine Schammelhout), a photographer too.

 

An engineer, he emigrated to New York and served in the U.S.Army during WWI. He then lived in Paris, Berlin and Brussels. His work was published in German magazines like Die Form, UHU, Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, Der Querschnitt and Die Dame.

 

The photos in this post appeared in the book Berlin in Bildern, 1929, Epstein Verlag. 

Website: http://www.fulltable.com/VTS/b/berlin/01/x.htm

 

In 1940, Sasha and his family fled to France and tried to reach Spain. But on August 6, 1940, Sasha died in Perpignan due to a serious illness. Incidentally, the writer and philosopher Walter Benjamin, one of whose books Sasha had illustrated in 1928, died a month later at Port-Bou, not far from Perpignan, trying to escape he too the Nazi occupation of France. 

Photographer Cami Stone

    

Uhu and photography

Photography, a still young art form in the twenties, was given great importance in Uhu-magazine. Very often, the subjects chosen were beautiful women, actresses or otherwise.

Some of the photographs were very well known names, like Erich Salomon, László Moholy-Nagy, Lili Baruch and Sasha Stone. 

    

Uhu, the innovative magazine

Some covers of the monthly magazine UHU, from 1931-1933. UHU was the prototype of the general interest magazine, very popular thanks to its originality and good printing technology. It was pioneer in its treatment of science and culture.

The covers were most often drawings, by artists such as Karl Schenker, Imre Goth, Walter Trier, Erich Godal, Curt Heiligenstaedt, Elisabeth Holz-Averdung, Hanns Hofmann-Lederer.

The motive is almost always the same : a beautiful young woman. Today that would be considered sexist maybe. Still, it should be noted that the girls are often (not always) shown practicing sports or playing music, not just as pretty dolls. 

All the covers are from this site: http://magazine.illustrierte-presse.de/en/

    

Diary of a lost girl

Diary of a Lost Girl (Tagebuch einer Verlorenen) is a 1929 silent film directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst and starring the iconic Louise Brooks. The film was based on the controversial and bestselling novel of the same name by Margarete Böhme, from 1905. And remember, 1929 is precisely the same year when Gereon Rath and Charlotte Ritter chase bad guys in the TV-series Babylon Berlin.

Louise Brooks plays the innocent daughter of a pharmacist who, after falling pregnant, is thrown from her home and sent to a scrict girls' reform school. After escaping, the girl, with nowhere to go, is forced to survive by working in a brothel.

The movie is an example of the Pabst's audacity, addressing those issues at a time where few dared to contradict moral codes.

The film features also two other stars : Valeska Gert and Kurt Gerron.

Kurt Gerron

Valeska Gert

    

Romance at the filling station

Lilian Harvey and Willy Fritsch

Die Drei von der Tankstelle, (The Three from the Filling Station ) from 1930, is a musical film directed by Wilhelm Thiele and starring Lilian Harvey, Willy Fritsch, Heinz Rühmann, Oskar Karlweis, Kurt Gerron. Produced by Erich Pommer, the film was a major success for the UFA studio, outgrossing even The Blue Angel. Several songs composed by Werner R. Heymann and performed by the Comedian Harmonists and by the crooner Leo Monosson have remained popular up to today. The film also had an influence on Hollywood musicals.

Three broke friends sell their car to acquire a filling station. The three petrol attendants, independently of one another, fall in love with the handsome and well-off customer Lilian (Lilian Harvey), anxiously hiding their romance with each other.

Willy Fritsch, Heinz Rühmann, Oskar Karlweis

Lilian Harvey