AUGUST SANDER
Handlanger / Bricklayer, 1928
© Die Photographische Sammlung / SK Stiftung Kultur - August Sander Archiv, Köln; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2014 / Courtesy Kicken Berlin
Biography
After working as a coalminer, August Sander (German, 1876-1964) trained as a photographer at the studio of Georg Jung in Trier from 1897 to 1899. He also worked at studios in Berlin, Dresden, and Leipzig and in 1910 opened his own portrait studio in Cologne. In addition to the day-to-day studio operation he worked on a portrait series of people living in the Westerwald region of western Germany. In the 1920s Sander came into contact with the Kölner Progressive artist group based around Franz Seiwert and Anton Räderscheidt. Sander started his long-term sociological photo project Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts, which was partially published in 1929 as Antlitz der Zeit. The National Socialist regime had the books’ masters destroyed in 1936. Wartime events led Sander to retreat to the Westerwald village Kuchhausen in 1942. In 1955 his work appeared in the Family of Man exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
