August Sander

Portrait. Landscape. Architecture

‘Photography is by nature a documentary art,’ Sander declared in 1931 during one of his radio lectures, voicing the artistic credo to which he remained faithful all his life. Sander owes his fame and status as a master of photography to the vast series of portraits begun at the very outset of his career. The German photographer’s portraits are full-face and typically quite uncompromising shots with carefully considered composition, where nothing is intended for effect or spectacle. Sander was able to capture the individuality and character traits of his subjects, while openly demonstrating that they belonged to a specific social group. Consequently his photographs are a representative slice of interwar German society and also a fascinating historical document, rather than merely a collection of portraits.

In the early 1920s August Sander spent much of his time with the artists of the German avant-garde and in particular Otto Dix, who became one of his closest friends. The money earned from commercial commissions allowed Sander to work in his spare time on a grandiose documentary project entitled ‘People of the 20th Century’, aimed at compiling a typology of contemporary Germans and devising a social portrait of his epoch. Subjects for these images were selected from his acquaintances and customers.

Since Sander could not conceive of humanity separately from the environment, he conducted an active study of fauna and worked on a topographical description of German territories in parallel to the portrait photography. In 1933 the photographer began producing thematic albums dedicated to various regions in Germany, including the Rhine valley. Although August Sander never achieved widespread recognition as a topographer, he can rightly be considered the forerunner of modern landscape and architectural photography.

Sander’s creative style, his methodical approach, objectivity and specific method of working on photographic series greatly influenced luminaries such as Walker Evans, Irving Penn, Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth and Andreas Gursky.

This exhibition was conceived by the photographer’s grandson Gerd Sander whose work is continued now by Julian Sander, the great grandson of August Sander. The exhibition is organised in collaboration with the Galerie Priska Pasquer (Cologne) and the Théâtre de la Photographie et de l’Image Charles Nègre (Nice) and curated by Julian Sander.

When asked in November 1927 what prompted him to create ‘People of the 20th Century’, August Sander wrote: ‘Look, observe and think’. These three words were engraved on Gerd Sander’s heart from childhood, and like his father before him, he is devoted to preserving, describing and popularising his grandfather’s artistic legacy.

17 November 1876. In the small town of Herdorf, near Cologne, August Sander and his wife Justine, née Jung, have a son — also named August. August Sander senior works as a timberman in the mines. He is later registered disabled and obliged to retire. August junior grows up surrounded by his six siblings and attends the local school.

1890-1896. Sander junior is employed as an unskilled worker at Herdorf iron ore mine. Strikes up an acquainted with a professional photographer from Siegen, who arouses his interest in photography. Shortly afterwards he buys his first photographic equipment with money provided by his uncle.

1897-1909. Military service from 1897 to 1899 and training as a photographer with Georg Jung. After his discharge from the army he travels extensively. Visits Berlin, Magdeburg, Halle, Leipzig and Dresden. Works in various photographic studios and is also a keen painter. In 1902 Sander becomes co-owner and subsequently sole proprietor of a photographic studio in the Austrian city of Linz. From about 1904 to 1909 he is a member of the Upper Austria Union of Artists. The images he produces in his ‘Atelier of Photographic Pictures’ are regularly exhibited and win awards. In 1902 August marries Anna Seitenmacher, and before long his sons Erich (1903) and Gunther (1907) are born.

1910-1920. The Sander family relocates to Cologne and he opens a photographic studio in the Lindenthal district, at Dürener Straße 201. Birth of the twins Sigrid and Helmut in 1911, but Sigrid is the sole survivor. Takes numerous photographs of the inhabitants of Westerwald, a mountainous region between Cologne and Frankfurt. Later these portraits will be incorporated in his series ‘People of the 20th Century’. Sander is conscripted after the outbreak of the First World War and only returns in 1918. Anna Sander runs the business in his absence.

From 1920. Intensive exchange with the Cologne Progressives group of artists, above all with Franz Seiwert and Heinrich Hoerle. Gradually the concept for his series ‘People of the 20th Century’ matures. In 1927 Sander and the author Ludwig Mathar travel to Sardinia, where they work on a book about life on the island. In November of the same year the first exhibition of photographs from the series ‘People of the 20th Century’ is held at the Cologne Art Association. Several photographs are published two years later in the album ‘Face of Our Time’. In 1931 Sander broadcasts six lectures on the nature of photography and the future of photographic art for Westdeutscher Rundfunk radio station. In 1934 an informer reveals that Sander’s son Erich is a member of the banned German Socialist Workers Party and he is condemned to ten years’ imprisonment. ‘Face of Our Time’ is withdrawn from sale and the printing plates destroyed. From 1933 to 1935 the publishers Schwann (Düsseldorf) and Holzwarth (Bad Rothenfelde) publish six booklets, each portraying a region of Germany. They contain photographs by August Sander and a few shots by Erich Sander, taken at the family’s photographic studio. Most of the images belong to the genre of landscape and architectural photography. During these years Sander also produces many studies of plants and different parts of the body (for example, hands) and carries out numerous commissions for industry and advertising. After the outbreak of the Second World War August and Anna are obliged to leave Cologne. In 1942 they begin moving their possessions to the Westerwald village of Kuchhausen. Sander’s studio in Cologne is destroyed by bombing.

1944-1946. In 1944 Erich Sander dies in Siegburg prison of complications from acute appendicitis. In January 1946 some 25,000 to 30,000 negatives still stored in the cellar of the Sanders’ house in Cologne are destroyed by fire. But throughout this period Sander maintains contact with friends in Cologne and continues with various photographic projects, although deprived of elementary working conditions.

1951-1962. A retrospective of August Sander’s work is held at the second photokina salon in Cologne in 1951, at the initiative of journalist and curator Fritz Gruber. The following year the photographer is visited by Edward Steichen, head of the photography department at the New York Museum of Modern Art. Images selected by Steichen are later shown at the famous 1955 exhibition entitled ‘The Family of Man’. In 1953 the City of Cologne acquires Sander’s series ‘Cologne As It Was’. In 1958 Sander is awarded the freedom of his hometown Herdorf. A special issue of the Swiss magazine Du devoted to August Sander appears in 1959. In 1960 Sander receives the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, first class, and the following year the German Photographic Society Culture Award. The photo album ‘Mirror of Germany: People of the 20th Century’ is published in 1962, with an introduction by Heinrich Lützeler.

1957. Anna Sander dies in Kuchhausen on 27 May.

1964. August Sander dies in Cologne on 20 April.