August Sander“People of the 20th Century”

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（ Google， 2013）(Google, 2013)

Content

• Background information of August Sander “People of the 20th century”

• Is it documentary or portraiture?

• Examples of past and contemporary documentary

August Sander 1876 - 1964(Google, 2013)

August Sander“People of the 20th Century

• A collective systematic portrait of German society during the Weimar Republic, recording the German people in the 20th century by their social classes and occupations. (Sander, 2000; Halley, 1978)

7 categories:

• The farmer• The skilled tradesman• The woman• Classes and professions• The artists• The city• The last people(Sander, 2000)

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Coal Carrier, Berlin, 1929

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Blind Girls, 1930

Soldier, 1940

Widower, 1914

“A physiognomic image of an age" – August Sander

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Documentary more than simply portraiture

• “A sociology without words” and a “comparative photography” underlying types. (Halley, 1978, p.667, 668)

• The photographs are representations of general category of different social groups, rather than individual stories. (Halley, 1978)

Documentary more than simply portraiture

• Sander’s belief of natural and strict photography as document, honestly and objectively reflecting the truth and reality of their epoch and it’s people. (Halley, 1978)

• Meticulous sense of observation of different social groups (Halley, 1978)

• “A truthful outline of the existing social order” (Sander, 2000, p.8)

Lewis Hine- Child labour

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• Commodification

• MarxDehumanisation

• SanderMachinery and humanity in coherence

Jacob Riis- “Street Arabs in the area of Mulberry Street ”

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Guy Tillim- Kunhinga portraitAngolan civil war

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References:

• Google. Retrieved 4th October, 2013 from the World Wide Web: http://www.google.com/

• Halley, A. (1978). August Sander. The Massachusetts Review, 19/4, 663-673.

• Sander, A. (Ed.). (2000). August Sander: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum. Getty Publications.