During a recent trip to Scotland, we visited Edinburgh's Dean Gallery. The current special exhibition is by August Sander, a German photographer whose body of work spans from 1910 to the mid 1940s.
Sander's life work was an extensive projected entitled 'People of the Twentieth Century'; a ‘portrait’ of the society in which he lived consisting of photographs of people across the social strata of Weimar Germany. He appears to have worked in a extremely methodical way, shots being grouped into specific job or role categories: farmers, workmen, artists, industrialists, Nazis, students, the unemployed, political prisoners (including Sander’s son), soldiers, circus performers and persecuted people. Even the dead are included, as ‘Matter’.
I enjoyed the range of portraits in the exhibition and the comprehensive view they give not only of society at the time, but also the clothing and hairstyles of the people.
Nice. I'm thinking of heading up there in the next month or so, I may just pop in and catch this!
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