Concomitant with Stone’s reportage on popular
theatrical culture are his photographs for the Erwin
Piscator Theater am Nollendorfplatz, which intro-
duced the elements of Piscator’s technique of epic
theater. This new style of staging used all possible
technical media in a radical constructivist manner
(i.e., projections, films, movable stage, adoption of
the review performance style). In the context of
Piscator’s book Das politische Theater of 1929,
Stone’s photographs served the purpose of a visual
primer for this new theatrical style and didactic of
political theater.
Stone also collaborated with various writers to
illustrate their books or design the book jacket for
their book, including Walter Benjamin’s Ein-
bahnstraße(One-Way Street, 1928), Adolf Behne’s
edited volumeBerlin in Bildern(Berlin in Pictures,
1929), and Paul Cohen-Portheim’s travel guide
Paris. He also provided photographs for such sur-
realist journals as the Belgian magazineVarietes,
and the Parisian magazine Bifur,as well as ar-
ranged an exhibition for American sculptor Alex-
ander Calder, a friend of the Parisian surrealists at
the Galerie Neumann and Nierendorf in Berlin,
where Stone’s photographs of Calder’s wire sculp-
tures were shown.
After working four years as a professional pho-
tographer, Stone’s work became indicative of the
new social applications of photography in Germany.
Stone’s work had appeared in all the representative
publications of the time and was included in the first
international photography exhibitionFotografie der
Gegenwart (Contemporary Photography) held in
Essen, Germany the same year. His work was also
presented in the seminal Werkbund exhibitionFilm
und Fotoheld in Stuttgart in 1929. It was ranked
among the most innovative of modern photogra-
pherssuchasManRay,ElLissitzky,EdwardStei-
chen, John Heartfield, La ́szlo ́ Moholy-Nagy, and
Otto Umbehr. As of 1929, Stone increased his
work for advertising photography and was con-
stantly engaged. Even an article inGebrauchsgrafik
in 1930 focused on his ad-photographs. Stone repre-
sented the advanced style of advertising photogra-
phy practiced in Germany in an exhibition held at
the Camera Club in London in 1930.
After 1930, Stone’s photographs rarely appeared
in the German illustrated press. In September 1931,
Stone moved to Brussels, the home city of Cami
Stone, and together they opened ‘‘Studio Stone.’’
Cami had relatives in Brussels, whom they fre-
quently visited in the 1920s, and, at that time,
Stone had first made contact with the art broker
Paul-Gustave van Hecke. Cami and Sasha partici-
pated in theExposition Internationales de la Photo-
graphiein 1932 in Brussels. The French magazine
Arts et Metiers Graphiquepublished Stone’s picture
bookFemmesin 1933 in its book series on the
human body. Stone’s commissioned work at this
time is mostly from industrial companies: Metalen
Gallen, Antwerp; industrial furniture company
Sidam, Brussels; interior furnishings company Si-
monis; and piano broker Vriamont. He, neverthe-
less, kept active in the cultural sphere regularly
taking artist portraits for theThe ́aˆtre de la Mon-
naie, collaborating with writers such as Paul Colin,
and maintaining contact with the intellectual and
artistic group around the editor ofVarie ́te ́sPaul-
Gustave van Hecke, i.e., ELT Mesens, Franz Hel-
lens, Robert Goffin, Nico Rost and the filmmaker
Henri Storck. In 1939, Stone opened a new studio
by himself without Cami. Fleeing the Nazis, he and
his family with Lydia Edens fled Belgium on 14
May 1940 over France and Spain with the goal of
escaping to the United States. Stone died along the
way in Villelongue-la-Salanque near Perpignan in
France on 6 August 1940.
CristinaCuevas-WolfSeealso:History of Photography: Interwar Years;
Photography in Germany and AustriaBiography
Born Aleksandr Serge Steinsapir, 16 December 1895 in St.
Petersburg, Russia. Studied electrical engineering at the
Warsaw Technical Institute, 1911–1913. Attended A.E.F.
Training Center in Bellevue near Paris, ca. 1916. Left
Paris for Berlin, 1922, and attended Alexander Archipen-
ko’s art course. Befriended Walter Benjamin and collabo-
rated with artists and intellectuals of the magazineG,- Opened photostudio in Berlin and ended career as
artist and sculptor, 1924. Photographs published in illu-
strated magazines as of 1925. Photographer for Erwin
Piscator and his theater, 1927–1928. Represented
advanced style of German advertising photography in
exhibition, Camera Club, London, 1930. Left Berlin for
Brussels, 1931. Worked for the firm Metalen Gallen and
the industrial company Sidam, 1933. Opened new studio
in Brussels, separated from Cami Stone, 1939. Fled Brus-
sels, 1940. Died 6 August 1940 in Villelongue-la-Salan-
que, France.
Individual Exhibitions
1933 Salon du Nu(with Cami Stone); Maison d’art; Brus-
sels, Belgium
1990 Sasha Stone,Photographs 1925–1939; Museum Folk-
wang; Essen, Germany and travelingSTONE, SASHA