Portraits - August Sander

The exhibition contains images from the Sander archive in Munich that belong to "Man in the Twentieth Century", the most significant photographic project by this great German artist, who was among the pioneers of European social photography.
August Sander was born in Herdorf in 1876 and died in Cologne in 1964. Considered the father of modern German photography, his influence as a portraitist was long-reaching, involving whole generations of European photographers.

Sander began his monumental work in the 20s with the intention of portraying the German class structure through images of groups and communities of people.
He began by going back to his first photographs of peasants from his home area, the Westerwald, which were joined by a vast series of portraits harmonising his nostalgic vision of the past with a new look projected at the future.
His photos of musicians, taxi-drivers, journalists, bureaucrats, dancers, industrialists, and secretaries reveal a totally unique social vision whereby station, occupation, and habits are reflected in the features and posture of the persons portrayed who thus become "types", icons of their class.
The arrival of the Third Reich, and to a greater extent, the imprisonment of his son, who was a member of the Workers' Party, put an end to Sander's ambitious project.
The 10,000 or so negatives that Sander managed to save, of which this exhibition shows a part, are an inestimably precious photographic and social document.

Curators: Susanne Lange and Gabi Conrath-Scholl