August Sander Notes

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ARTGALLERY

N SW

EDUCATION C OLLECTION NOTESINVESTIG ATING KEY ARTWO RK S IN THE G ALLERYwww.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/education

AUGUST SANDER

MALER (ANTON RDERSCHEIDT)

FIELD WITH MARGUERITESUNIVERSITTSGEBUDE(UNIVERSITY BUILDING)


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AUGUST SANDERG ERM AN Y 18761964

MALER (ANTON RDERSCHEIDT) 1926, printed 1978gelatin silver photograph, 27 x 19.7 cm

Alistair M cAlpine Photography Fund 2007 22.2007

Die P hotographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung K ultur August Sander Archiv, C ologne

Licensed by Viscopy, A ustralia

Art G allery of New South Wales C ollection notes 2007 August Sander


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FIELD WITH MARGUERITES 1930sgelatin silver photograph, 17.1 x 22.9cm

Purchased with funds provided by the Photography C ollection Benefactors Program 2006 58.2006





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UNIVERSITTSGEBUDE (UNIVERSITY BUILDING) 193537gelatin silver photograph, 17.2 x 23.1cm

Purchased with funds provided by the Photography C ollection Benefactors Program 2004 134.2004





5/6Art G allery of New South Wales C ollection notes 2007 August Sander

Nothing seemed more appropriate to methan to render through photography a pictureof our t imes which is absolutely true tonature ... In order to see truth we must beable to tolerate it whether it is in our favouror not ... So allow me to be honest and tellthe truth about our age and its people.August Sander 19271

August Sander was one of the 20th centurys greatest

photog rap hers. His rema rkab le a tlas of the people of the 20th

century, c ompiled over a period of five de ca des but never finished,

was a series of portraits that aimed to exhaustively document

contempo rary German s ociety. His w ork went on to influence Walker

Evans, Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, B ernd a nd Hilla Be cher, a nd the

more rec ent w ork of Thoma s Ruff, Thoma s S truth, Andrea s G ursky

and Rineke Dijkstra.

August S and er bega n his w orking life as a co mmercial portrait

photo gra pher in Austria. The st oc k-in-trad e of tha t job wa s us ually

to flatter the sitter or client; to produc e po rtraits tha t presented an

acceptable mask rather than capture an essential truth or essence

of the subject. But by around 1910 Sanders approach shifted to a

more deta ched o bservational style that s ought to see things as theyare and not as they could or should be. His camera objectively

noted the every deta il: fur collars, monoc les, wa lking s ticks, the

Dobermans, the military armbands and the anxiety in his subjects

wa ry eyes.

To s ee things as they a re in Weimar Ge rmany (c192033) wa s

to p enetrate the terrible uncertainties and bew ilderment that

underpinned the rise of the National Socialists and Adolf Hitler.

Sa nders cool and unemotional images , sha rply focused and flatly

lit, grew to a total of about 700 photographs, classified into seven

a rche typa l ca teg ories : The Fa rmer, The S killed Trade sm a n,

The Woma n, C la ss es a nd P rofes sions , The Artists , The City a nd

The Last P eople. These ca tegories ap pea r tightly taxonomic,

moving from the noble rustics of the s oil to the c apitalists and

bohemians, and ba ck to the outcas ts of s ociety. S ander rarely

identifies his s ubjects by na me; c las sified b y profess ion o r social

class, the images remain representations of types rather than

portraits o f individua ls. The s eq uence o f S and ers ca tego ries

foretells ano ther narrative: the s ense that these stratified roles of

a nearly feuda l community in their Sunday best a re ab out to be

slammed into a war-fuelled modernity. It also shows how Sanders

thinking a bout genea logy, typology and physiognom y fed into the

then influential social philosophy of eugenics 2 and the darker

currents of racism and Nazism.

August Sander manages to do what photography does best: to

suspe nd time for a mo ment. And yet in spite of the s olitude a nd

stillness of his composed portraits, we sense the lethal movementsof history about to sweep everything away. How did these people

end up? Where did they g o?

As the shattering inflation of 1920s Germany hit home, respected

families would be thrown from their houses, precious jewellery and

fine carpets would be traded for milk and eggs (we wonder about

Sa nders ba nk official of 1932 was he interested in s aving the

currency or collapsing it?). Soon ministers would be murdered and

sc hoolchildren would chee r; one o f the a geing revolutiona ries that

Sander photographed would have his teeth knocked out with rifle

butts; young s oldiers tha t looked innoce nt in their helmets pos ing in

a farmyard a long w ay from the wa r would s oon be ca rrying out

frightening ac ts of violence and des truction.

Maler(or Painter) 1926, one of three w orks b y S and er held in the

Ga llerys co llection, wa s in fac t a rtist Anton R derscheidt

(18921970). He looks conformist in dress and stern in aspect, but

behind the se verity of the s uit a nd expression is an element of

misc hief. History tells us that R derscheidt w orked as a freelance

artist in Cologne and had known Hans Arp and Raoul Haussmann.

Exhibitions w ere held in his s tudio a nd there wa s a da da ist moo d in

many of the gatherings. But the world would become more

comp lica ted. By 1934 he had left G ermany for P aris and then Toulon

in France. By 1940 he was placed in an internment camp near

Toulon. A close friend po iso ned himself there. When R de rsche idtwas about to be handed over to the Germans, he escaped across

the Swiss border (hidden by a butcher from Barjols among his wares

and taken across illegally). He painted until he died from stroke in

1970 bac k in C ologne.3

Given the po litica l climate and rampa nt nationalism of Nazi

Ge rmany, it is not s urprising tha t S and ers wa tchful and wo rried

citizens in his sm a ller 1929 project Antlitz der Zeit(Face of the time)

we re not wha t the Third Reich w a nted . The bricklayers a nd tea che rs

were rather too ordinary a t a time o f such loud patriotism: heroic

lead ers a nd g lorious so ldiers w ere the order of the da y. The bo ok

was confiscated and the printing plates destroyed. In 1934 Sanders

son Erich, a student and a ctive Communist, w as denounced and

sentenced to ten years imprisonment. He was to die there. Sander

ended his portfolio on the picture of the death mask of his son.

Then, at the end of the wa r, Sa nders C ologne studio wa s de stroyed

by fire and 30 000 negatives were lost.

With historical hindsight, Sanders detailed portraits, country

landscapes, fields of marguerites, or the solid university buildings

convey a c ertain sense of menace a nd pathos; these seeming

so lidities of everyday life have a poignant impermanence. From our

position in the 21st century we know of the tragic consequences

and aftermath o f Hitlers G ermany.

What makes Sanders People of the 20th centuryproject so

compelling for viewers today is the way we are both engaged and



6/6Art G allery of New South Wales C ollection notes 2007 August Sander

estranged before these images: spare and yet full of information,unsent imenta l a nd yet a ffecting. The peo ple loo k res erved, their

Prussian bearing conveys the fear of dropping from the safety of

their status. They dont w ant to g ive too much a wa y and yet every

detail of face and hand speaks volumes. And so we oscillate

between the protective mask that weighs so heavily and the real

facts of character in a face, between the general and the specific.

Sa nders images also mark a bridge between a persons pas t and

their uncertain future. It is this perhaps that is so suggestive for us

here and now: how discord can readily replace peace; how

catastrophe seems far away until it is very near; and how quickly

we can lose what we hold on to for dear life.

1. August S ander Archive. August S ander: In photography there are no unexplained

shad ows !, National Portrait G allery, London 1996, p 21

2. The Eugenics program was esta blished a s ea rly as J uly 1933 by the Nazi party which

justified the sterilisation of the racially weak in Germany, in order to strengthen the

Aryan bloods tream originating in Sc andinavia (or old Germany)

3. ww w.raederscheidt.com/english/default.htm

SOURCES AND FURTHER READING

August Sander Archive. August Sander: ' In photography there are

no unexplained shadows!' , N ational Portrait Gallery, London 1996

Dblin, A. Faces, images and their truth in August Sander: face

of the time, M ichael Robertson (trans), Shirmers Visual Library,

M unich 1994

J Paul Getty M useum. August Sander: photographs from the

J Paul Getty Museum, The J Paul Getty M useum, Los Angeles 1999

Lange, S. A testimony to photography: reflections on the life and

work of August Sander in August Sander 18761964, M Heiting (ed),

Taschen, New York 1999

Sander. G (ed). August Sander: c itizens of the twentieth century,

The M IT Press, C ambridge M a 1986

For further resources, information and programs related toAugust Sander and his work see also:

Art G allery of New South Wales

Information on the exhibition Extraordinary images of ordinary people:

the photographs of August Sander from the J Paul Getty Museum

17 November 2007 3 February 2008

Information on August Sander photographs in the collection

www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au

J Paul G etty M useum

J Paul G etty Museum Education

www.getty.edu

A biography of the artist August Sander from

the J Paul Getty M useums collection

ww w.g etty.ed u/a rt/ge ttyg uide /a rtMa kerDeta ils? ma ker= 1786

ISSUES FOR CONSIDERATION Sa nders a pproach to photography in the 1910s was about

seeing things a s they a re and not as they could or should be.

Cons ider this s tatement and discuss the role of photog raphy a s a

tool for portra ying the truth. Disc uss the relationship betw een the

artist, s ubject, imag e a nd the time it wa s c reated. How do these

relationships shape the way we see this truth?

Resea rch the historica l events that were taking place in Germany

in the early 20th century. Sugg est how Sa nder responded to these

events and discuss the impact they had on his art. Specifically

consider Sa nders technica l and compos itional dec isions. Deba te

whether his approach is unique to the time.

Were S anders imag es well received b y the a udience o f the time?

Research how different social classes responded to his portrayal of

the human form. In wha t wa y ca n the audience of toda y bring

meaning to Sanders images? How do specific histories, memories

and experiences of different audiences affect the interpreta tion o f

an artwork?

Discuss the modernist q ualities po rtrayed in Sa nders

photographs. In what w ay ha s S anders w ork influenced the

development of modernist photography? Cons ider the technical

and compositional qualities as well as his approach to portraying

human identity.

Sa nder had a fa scination for physiognomy or the study of

appea rance to determine the character of a person. Choo se a

portrait by Sander from his body of work and discuss the

significa nce of fac ial express ion. How does the face e ncompas s

time and experience? Sander was also interested in classifications

and typologies. Discuss how this a pproa ch enhanced the narratives

he was trying to portray.

Sa nder was trained as a pictorialist in the late 19th century. What

does this mean? Research pictorialism and identify the

characteristics found in Sa nders imag es. Discuss how this has

influenced his a pproac h to pho tog raphy in the 20th century.

Evaluate the w ay Sa nder observed the w orld a round him a nd hisattention to technical and compositional detail.

August S ander influenced ma ny 20th-century a nd co ntemporary

Europea n a nd Australian artists such as Dia ne Arbus, Rob ert Frank,

Andreas Gursky and Anne Zahalka. Develop a ca se s tudy on one o f

these a rtists and discus s the s ignifica nce of S anders a pproa ch to

see ing the wo rld a round him on their ow n a rtmaking.

AcknowledgmentsWritten and coordinated by George Alexander and Leeanne Carr, Public ProgramsDepartment; editor J ennifer Blunden ; design Karen Hancock

Produced by the Public Programs Department

Art Ga llery of New So uth Wa lesArt Ga llery Roa d, The Do ma in, Syd ney 2000 Australia

[email protected]

www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au 2007 Art Ga llery of New So uth Wales

August Sander Notes

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