August Sander
Occupational Portraits
1925-33
gelatin silver prints
each about 9 x 6 in.
at the Getty Museum
“August Sander: German Portraits, 1918-1933,” at the Getty Museum from Mar. 6-June 24, 2001, presents the photographer’s physiognomic portraits of Germany’s social strata during the artistically fervent and politically turbulent Weimar Period, immediately prior to the rise of the Third Reich.
For this exhibition, the Getty focuses primarily on Sander’s controversial portrait of Germany, “Citizens of the 20th Century,” a project in which the artist envisioned an ultimate portfolio of 500 photographs in 45 portfolios divided into seven hierarchical divisions based on class and occupation or trade.
Sander never completed the typological project, as it was met with Nazi resistance. Still, the exhibition features more than 125 of Sander’s photographs, which are drawn from the Getty’s collection of more than 1,200 images (second in size only to the artist’s official archive in Cologne).
