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In Focus: August Sander: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum
The long life of German photographer August Sander (1876-1964) spanned one of the most turbulent eras in his country's history. The Great War of 1914-1918, the Weimar Republic, the reign of National Socialism, and the horrors of World War II all left an indelible imprint on both the man and
his work. Sander, a conventional studio portraitist who transformed himself into an avant-gardist, exemplified the complex and sometimes contradictory nature of his time. He was at once innovative and deeply wedded to the past, blending a progressive vision with a traditional view of society and his
craft.
The approximately fifty plates featured in In August Sander are some of the most striking from the Getty Museum's more than twelve hundred pictures by the artist. They include images of rural dwellers such as those found in Young Farmers and Farm Girls , and other portraits including Wife of
the Cologne Painter Peter Abelen, Parliamentarian and the poignant Blind Children, Düren . A chronological overview of Sander's life provides a factual framework for this discussion.
his work. Sander, a conventional studio portraitist who transformed himself into an avant-gardist, exemplified the complex and sometimes contradictory nature of his time. He was at once innovative and deeply wedded to the past, blending a progressive vision with a traditional view of society and his
craft.
The approximately fifty plates featured in In August Sander are some of the most striking from the Getty Museum's more than twelve hundred pictures by the artist. They include images of rural dwellers such as those found in Young Farmers and Farm Girls , and other portraits including Wife of
the Cologne Painter Peter Abelen, Parliamentarian and the poignant Blind Children, Düren . A chronological overview of Sander's life provides a factual framework for this discussion.
- GenresArt
144 pages, Paperback
First published December 28, 2000
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April 6, 2014
Great intro to the quintessential Weimar-era German photographer. Sander was a real hero of conscience, a conservative who (inspired by Oswald Spengler) shared some odd ideas about human "types" with the Nazis, but was brave enough to realize that those ideas were ultimately bankrupt and dangerous, that there was no "typical" German. He had set out to portray the "true face" of the German people, then ended up engaging in shouting matches with Nazi officers and deliberately shopping at Jewish businesses in protest against Hitler's racial policies. The Nazis detested his work and destroyed some of his plates, as Sander challenged their notions of what Germans were supposed to look like.
Though most identified with the 1920s, Sander was making formal portraits of the last German peasants in the rural Westerwald (near Cologne), where he took refuge during the later Nazi years. (He stored most of his beautiful glass-plate negatives in a basement in Cologne, which amazingly survived the Allied fire bombings, only to lose three-quarters of his work -- 30,000 negatives -- in an accidental fire in 1946.)
His work is stylistically conservative, but the essays and commentary in this book beautifully unpack the amazing, almost archaeological, depths beneath what seem like straightforward photos.
Also, it was amazing to discover that Sander (who was born in 1876, a year after the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and who stopped photographing at the end of World War II) lived until 1964. This shocked me, to find out that a man who seems to belong to the utterly lost world of the peasantry, of Wilhelmine discipline, and who is so associated with the Weimar Republic (a time and place that fascinates us so much because we know what horror Germany was already descending into in those years) -- this man was still alive during the era of the Beatles and Elvis. We prefer that his work stay in the past, just as we prefer the fact that Rilke died in 1926 -- something about it seems more poetic that way, when the beautiful die young. What is shocking then, is that the more we look and dig, the more we see how close to us Sander's world and these photographs still are.
Though most identified with the 1920s, Sander was making formal portraits of the last German peasants in the rural Westerwald (near Cologne), where he took refuge during the later Nazi years. (He stored most of his beautiful glass-plate negatives in a basement in Cologne, which amazingly survived the Allied fire bombings, only to lose three-quarters of his work -- 30,000 negatives -- in an accidental fire in 1946.)
His work is stylistically conservative, but the essays and commentary in this book beautifully unpack the amazing, almost archaeological, depths beneath what seem like straightforward photos.
Also, it was amazing to discover that Sander (who was born in 1876, a year after the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and who stopped photographing at the end of World War II) lived until 1964. This shocked me, to find out that a man who seems to belong to the utterly lost world of the peasantry, of Wilhelmine discipline, and who is so associated with the Weimar Republic (a time and place that fascinates us so much because we know what horror Germany was already descending into in those years) -- this man was still alive during the era of the Beatles and Elvis. We prefer that his work stay in the past, just as we prefer the fact that Rilke died in 1926 -- something about it seems more poetic that way, when the beautiful die young. What is shocking then, is that the more we look and dig, the more we see how close to us Sander's world and these photographs still are.
Displaying 1 of 1 review