Verlag Heinrich Ellermann, Hamburg. 29.5 x 32 cm. 112 pp. 96 illustrations after photographs by Alfred Ehrhardt. Preface by Dr. Kurt Dingelstedt. Original cloth binding with blue embossed title on spine and front cover. Original dust jacket. - Traces of use. Front flyleaf with handwritten dedication by previous owner, 1944. First edition.
"The modernist New Vision style was characterized by a tendency to find subjects both in the city and in nature that made good abstract or semi-abstract photographs. One of the most fruitful modernist subjets was the seaside. Sand, sea and rocks lent themselves particularly well to the abstraction treatment, and a number of notable books were made in this vein [...]. The best of this genre is arguably Alfred Ehrhadt's Das Watt. The date of publication is significant, since it contradicts the widely held belief that New Vision modernism all but disappeared after the Nazis came to power in 1933 [...]. Ehrhardt's photographs of a commonplace subject - mudflats after the tide has receded - are simple, striking and carefully crafted. Although this kind of thing had often been done before, Ehrhardt does it particularly well. [...] This is both an attractively designed and finely printed book." (zitiert nach: Martin Parr, Gerry Badger (ed.), The Photobook: A History, Volume I, London et al. 2004, ill. p. 112)