August Sander
August Sander was born in 1876 in Herdorf, near Cologne. As a youth he worked as an apprentice in the local coalmine, where he was one day chosen as a guide to a photographer commissioned by the mine owners. This was his introduction to the camera. Supported by his family, he set up a studio/darkroom and later went to art college. In 1902/03, he set up a studio in Linz with a friend and, in 1910 opened one on his own in Cologne.
From 1918, he travelled through the Westerwald countryside, systematically taking portraits of the different 'types', tradespeople, classes and individuals he came across. Moving in 'progressive art' circles, from 1920 began to formulate his great project, 'People of the Twentieth Century'. The first exhibition to arise from this work, held in Cologne, was acclaimed. As the thirties progressed, however, Sander fell foul of the rising power of the Nazis, who approved neither of the style of photography, nor his inclusive approach to his subjects. In the late thirties, the Gestapo destroyed some of his work and Sander retreated into landscape photography during the Second World War.
More negatives were destroyed in 1944, when his Cologne studio was hit by a bomb. After the war, helped by his son, Gunther, August Sander salvaged his remaining archive. The work was 'rediscovered' in the early fifties. He died in 1964.penetrating portraits of German life in the early part of the century.
Sander Collection
from: Photography
Photographs from the classic portrait survey of German life in the 1920s and 1930s, People of the Twentieth Century.