August Sander
For all the proliferation of the business of art these days it’s a relief and escape this morning to look back to one of the greats of portraiture, August Sander, who taking these portraits during the first half of the last century would have had little to no concern at all with art, but rather his concerns were of a documentation of a scientific sorts, a photographic record of the German people. When I look at these I wonder if he knew how good he was, how original…if he understood even partially the lasting influence he’d have on photographers of the genre to this day. As an aside, in the manners of refinement and dignity (not to mention tonality) they bring to mind Penn for me; a specificity and accuracy is apparent, an intentionality…it’s unlikely, I’d reckon, that there were many happy accident’s in Sander’s making these.
photo: from the series “Man of the Twentieth Century” by August Sander
photo: from the series “Man of the Twentieth Century” by August Sander
photo: from the series “Man of the Twentieth Century” by August Sander
Penn was Sanders re-born, at least part of him. I think he knew what he was doing, or he wouldn’t know how to do it, just as Penn knew who he was copying? stealing? channeling?
You do the best photo blog I ever see. Great work and I like mostly the same photographers as you. By the way: Do you know who the big man with the bald big head stirring in a bowl on the August Sander Picture was? A baker from Cologne called Hirsch. He was a friend of my grandpas who owned a bakery himself just around the corner.