Putting a face on a prewar Germany

A seeming lack of style can be a powerful tool for a photographer. August Sander, arguably the greatest German portrait photographer in the prewar era, profoundly proved the worth of understatement.

When he published his first book of photographs in 1929, translated as both "Face of Our Time" and "Face of the Time," a reviewer wrote, "An art book created by the greatest artist of all - real life."

The critic was wrong, in a right-headed way. Sander`s pictures, abundantly represented in a 125-image exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum, look so artless because they are often so perfectly artful.

Consider the trio in the often-reproduced "Young Farmers" (1914). They are strikingly charming, posing at a slight angle, in dark suits and hats, with walking sticks firmly planted on a dirt road. One figure looks slightly hardened, his skin weathered and a cigarette firmly held in his lips. The other two, more boyish, are youth personified.

Or take some time with the lesser-known picture called "Farm Girls" (1928). Like Sander`s farm boys, they are dressed in their Sunday best. And they, too, seem to be traveling a rustic road. The similarity of their outfits creates a tidy near-symmetry, making the picture striking. But the intrigue is in the subtle details: the alert expression of the girl on the right vs. the apathetic face of her counterpart. And why does the listless girl persist in carrying a wilting flower in one hand?

In either example, Sander doesn`t glorify or denigrate his subjects. He takes quiet delight in drawing out, forthrightly, the extraordinariness of ordinary people. And his plain style of picturing them - in crisp and clean blacks and whites, lens attuned to the eye-level of his subjects - bears favorable comparison to Walker Evans` portraits of sharecroppers from the 1930s. Sander`s style is perfectly suited to his overarching ambition (and the arch was monumental) to create a portrait of the German people: "Man of the Twentieth Century" he called it. The many categories of his grand design conveyed his concept of society: from agricultural vigor to industrial vitality to degeneration. (He borrowed heavily from German philosopher Oswald Spengler on this front.) The photographer`s "Young Farmers" and "Farm Girls" were part of a cluster of pictures devoted to "farm youth." In "Face of Our Time," he placed them on successive pages.

But Sander knew that an epic blueprint for his pictures wasn`t enough. People simply couldn`t be types only; they had to be individuals, too. "Every person`s story is clearly written on his face, though not everyone can read it," Sanders once said. An immodest comment? Perhaps. But the expressions in his faces, like the poses of his subjects, will likely lodge themselves in your memory for a long time.

Sander`s pictures declare that he had a rapport with people from every strata and corner of German society. His own life seemed ready made for his project; or, perhaps it`s more accurate to say that his life shaped his project. He had become a sophisticated cosmopolitan, friend to avant-garde painters - the Cologne progressives - in the `20s, and a collector of art and antiques. But his origins were more humble.

Sander was born in 1876 in the Siegerland, a region whose economy was dependent on farming and mining. His family had done both and Sander, one of nine children, worked in the mines to help support them.

His father also loved drawing and, in turn, so did Sander. The artist became intrigued with photography after a serendipitous encounter with a photographer at the mines. He decided to learn the basics from books, with the help of the village physician, the only person he knew who had the knack for explaining its technical aspects.

Sander apprenticed with photographers in several cities, studied painting at Dresden`s Academy of Art and set up commercial studios of his own in Linz, Austria, and then Cologne, where he and his wife Anna settled. By 1910, he had dreamed up his guiding concept, envisioning 45 portfolios of 12 photographs each. Although he never realized his sweeping idea, it still guided his choice of pictures.

Selecting from its 1,255 prints by Sander (no American museum has more), the Getty emphasizes the years in which he reached maturity. The time frame of the show, 1918-1933, corresponds to the rule of the Weimar Republic, a period of great artistic ferment in Germany.

"August Sander: German Portraits" loosely adheres to the photographer`s own categories of pictures, but also draws our attention to his sharpness as a portraitist.

He adored children and found as much character in their faces as in those of adults. Even toddlers have a kind of simple dignity in his photographs. The 2-year-old in "Child, Westerwald" (circa 1926) has a wonderfully pensive expression. There is comic poetry in the deadly serious expression of the tiny child balanced on a large bike and the seated dog who seems to strike the same expression.

By putting aside Sander`s own categories, the reach of his collective portrait becomes clearer. In "Women, and the Metropolis," there is the relaxed double portrait "Bricklayers, Austria" (circa 1930). They pose in workday clothes, one smiling, with hand on hip, the other more earnest. This image gives way to "Young Bourgeois Mother" (1926) - she reclines in leisurely fashion with her happy baby. This mom looks as if work is the last thing on her mind.

As the show emphasizes, Sander felt he had evolved from craftsman to professional to artist. Perhaps that`s why he had a great sensitivity to people who had a trade.

"The Bricklayer" (1932) is vintage Sander. The man poses with trowel in hand, bricks to either side of him in columnlike stacks and his work clothes well-pressed. Still, it`s the face that commands the most attention. The bricklayer is proud to be one, and Sander is able to capture that pride. As the artist himself claimed, he was a fine reader of faces.

Sander`s philosophy of the portrait was to let the subject pose and dress as he or she wished. The person before the camera became a kind of performer in his own drama - revealing in some cases, simply theatrical in others. You can`t help but feel that he took pleasure in everyday costumes, too, as in "Cinema Staff" (1932), where a man and woman wear the ornate costumes and concession trays of the day. "Wife of the Cologne Painter Peter Abelen (Helen) (1926)" is obviously a photographic performance. Her androgynous costume and stance was the creation of her husband, the Abelens` daughter explains in the compact book that accompanies the exhibition. Sander`s documentary impulse carried over to his home and studio. Beginning about 1930 and continuing through 1942, he took many pictures of both. A generous selection of these photographs are in the exhibition. And though we could have done with fewer architectural images, they reveal how his love of clean, straightforward design extended to his domestic environs.

His inclusive view of the German people and the Nazis` idealized view of the same collided. When the Third Reich came to power, its cultural ministers had the plates to "Faces of Our Time" destroyed, and they banned his photographs. He moved to his native countryside of Westerwald during World War II, taking 10,000 of his most prized negatives with him. About 30,000 other images, which survived the war in Cologne, were destroyed in 1946 by fire.

Having survived Nazi condemnation and the war, Sander (who died in 1964) also lived long enough to see regard for his pictures rise again. His photographs cohere as a fascinating portrait of the Germans of their day.

Yet while his faces chronicle an era, they also transcend it.

(c) Copley News Service

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Author: Robert L. Pincus