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[ Deutsch ]
Zur Biographie
des August Sander
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Mutter mit Kindern, 1909
Rheinische Bauernbraut, 1913/14
Studien – der Mensch, 1938
Mensch und Maschine, 1938
Quarzgrube Frechen, 1930er Jahre
Blick auf die Insel Nonnenwerth, rechts die Burgruine Drachenfels, 1930er Jahre
Wolkenburg, 24. Dezember 1938
Waldmeister (Asperula odorata), 1930er Jahre
Reklamephoto, 1955/56
Allianz, um 1936
Köln, Hohenzollernbrücke, 1930er Jahre
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August Sander
„Das Wesen der gesamten Photographie ist dokumentarischer Art,“
... said August Sander in one of the six radio talks which he gave on Westdeutscher Rundfunk in 1931, thus giving expression to his personal view of his work.
August Sander, who is among the most important photographers in the history of the medium, is regarded as the forerunner, so to speak, of what was then a new trend in photography, today seen in the context of "Neue Sachlichkeit". Born in Herdorf in the Siegerland in 1876, he achieved fame through his work "People of the 20th Century", which he conceived in the mid 1920s. It consists of folders of several hundred portraits of people from different social classes and occupations in accordance with a concept he worked out over many years. Excerpts from the work were first shown at an exhibition held by the Kölnischer Kunstverein in 1927, and in his first book, published in 1929 under the title "Antlitz der Zeit" ("Face of Our Time"). With this volume of 60 portraits, introduced by Alfred Döblin, Sander succeeded in presenting a multifaceted social portrait of his age, one that aimed at reflecting on the "individual" vis-ŕ-vis the "typical" in each social and occupational group, as well as enquiring into the mutual influence of individual and community. Sander's method is summed up in the terms "comparative photography" and "direct observation", which also point up his concern for unprejudiced true-to-life depiction. In addition it is clear that Sander saw juxtaposition as a means of bringing out the typical physiognomies and body-languages of the different genders, generations and occupational groups, as well as individual phenomena. It was in this sense that he wrote to an artist friend in 1951: "Photography is like a mosaic, which only achieves a synthesis when you can display it all at once as I did in my work Antlitz der Zeit."
"Antlitz der Zeit" met with a huge response, as is evidenced in numerous reviews by, among others, Kurt Tucholsky, Thomas Mann and Walter Benjamin, who in his "Kleine Geschichte der Photographie" ("Short History of Photography") in 1931 pointed especially to its educational effect against the background of the threat of Nazi rule. In 1936, however, the printing plates for "Antlitz der Zeit" were destroyed by the Nazis and further distribution of the book was stopped. This was a second heavy blow for Sander; two years earlier, his eldest son Erich had been arrested on political grounds and sentenced to ten years imprisonment, from which he never emerged, dying of medical neglect shortly before his release was due. Even so, Sander himself was not banned from working (as has often been supposed), and continued to operate from the studio in the Lindenthal district of Cologne which he had set up in 1911.
In parallel with his extensive portrait work, August Sander had devoted himself since his youth to other motifs, for example landscape and architecture, designing numerous folders of pictures for these areas of his work too. In addition, he was in constant contact with numerous artists, in particular the Cologne Progressives around Heinrich Hoerle and Franz Wilhelm Seiwert, for whom he undertook a great deal of photographic work, as well as with clients from industry and the craft trades.
In his 70 or so years as a photographer, August Sander explored the essence and evolution of photography in almost every respect; technique, choice and composition of a motif, and the use and context of the photograph itself. His work thus bears witness to a profound, practical and theoretical confrontation with his medium, which led him to a clearly defined way of dealing with it. He described this as "exact photography", whose origins lay in the early days of the medium, and which sought to give an absolutely true-to-life picture of his age. Even more was to result: a unique photographic work of far-reaching importance in terms both of cultural history and of the further development of the medium.
August Sander died in Cologne in 1964. The world's largest collection of his works, including more than 4,500 original prints and some 11,000 original negatives, is today housed at the Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung, Cologne, and made accessible to the public through continual publications and exhibitions.
Dr. Susanne Lange / Gabriele Conrath-Scholl
Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur
Copyright
Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur – August Sander Archiv, Köln; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2008
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