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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
8/12/2019 August Sander Notes
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AUGUST SANDERG ERM AN Y 18761964
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
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
8/12/2019 August Sander Notes
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AUGUST SANDERG ERM AN Y 18761964
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
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
8/12/2019 August Sander Notes
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
AUGUST SANDERG ERM AN Y 18761964
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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
pp@nsw.gov.au
www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au 2007 Art Ga llery of New So uth Wales