Karl Blossfeldt was a German photographer, sculptor, teacher, and artist who worked in Berlin, Germany. He is best known for his close-up photographs of plants and living things, published in 1929 as Urformen der Kunst. He was inspired, as was his father, by nature and the ways in which plants grow. He believed that "the plant must be valued as a totally artistic and architectural structure."
Among his contacts at the Berlin Arts and Crafts School was Heinz Warneke. From 1923, he was professor at the Vereinigte Staatsschulen für freie und angewandte Kunst in Berlin, Germany. He died aged 67.