Web Work # 6- The most important German portrait photographer of the early 20th century

August Sander (1876 –1964) was a German portrait and documentary photographer who has been described as "the most important German portrait photographer of the early twentieth century." In the early 1920s, Sander began a project documenting contemporary society in a portrait series. His work, Face of our Time was published in 1929.

Sander’s work and personal life were impacted by the Nazis. “His son Erich, who was a member of the left wing Socialist Workers' Party (SAP), was arrested in 1934 and sentenced to 10 years in prison, where he died in 1944, shortly before the end of his sentence. Sander's book Face of our Time was seized in 1936 and the photographic plates destroyed. Around 1942, during World War II, he left Cologne and moved to a rural area, allowing him to save most of his negatives. His studio was destroyed in a 1944 bombing raid.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Sander)
Something that I find fascinating about Sander’s work is his categorization of his portrait subjects by profession or social class.

“Sander believed that society was organized into a hierarchy of occupations. One section of his project is dedicated to the skilled tradesman, including master craftsmen, industrialists, technicians, and inventors. Subjects associated with intellectual or "white-collar" labor were usually photographed indoors in three-quarter-length poses, while master craftsmen were portrayed in their working environment with the tools of their trades. Portrayed as he emerges from the dark basement of a building, the coal carrier in the image above belongs to the lower ranks of labor and is symbolically associated with the bowels of German society.” (http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/sander/)