ART
August Sander |
Written 30 January |
Tuesday 22 September, 13:00Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, 75014 [map]August Sander
In 1927 on the occasion of his exhibition Men of the Twentieth Century at the Kunstverein in Cologne,
August Sander declared that « to see, observe and think » was the credo of his work. HCB, in collaboration with Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur in Cologne present around a hundred images from the famous German photographer (1876-1964) which provides a large typological and topographical account of his era and a large lesson in photography. Images of the time, mainly the images collected, are of a rare quality and the whole makes for a new exhibit in Paris. Portraits, landscapes and botanic studies lend justice to the spirit of his work.
Born in 1876 Sander searched all his life to transmit an image of his time, faithful to reality thanks to photography. He was passionate for the medium from an early age and bought his first camera at 16. Employed in a photo studio he set up quickly as a professional photographer in Cologne and earned his living as a portraitist. At the start of the 20s he was linked with the artistic circles in cologne. Musicians, writers, architects and actors posed for his photos which was the time he began to work on the project of life, Hommes du XXeme siecle (published in 1980). This collection of portraits had the aim of establishing a sort of sociological inventory of human types, social classes and professions whilst avoiding idealistic clichés.
Sander also studied nature and established a topographical repertoire of different regions of Germany as well as producing many botanical studies. For him it was important to show the existing link between man and the natural spaces that he creates.
With the arrival of the Nazis photography became difficult. After the war Sander devoted himself to organising his archives and notably the constitution of a vast collection on Cologne before the destruction of the town during the war: Köln wie es war ( Cologne as it was ).
In 1951 he was part of the famous “Family of man” exhibition organised by Steichen at MoMA in New York in 1955. Sander died in 1964; he left an immense body of work of which its clarity and obsession with the truth were of a great modernity and continue to influence many contemporary photographers.
