Afternoon Break, Westerwald, Germany

August Sander

c. 1928

Gelatin silver print

Minneapolis Institute of Art

A man, woman, and child take a break from plowing a field with two cows standing behind them. A white enamel coffee pot sits on the ground. A man, woman, and child take a break from plowing a field with two cows standing behind them. A white enamel coffee pot sits on the ground. In the 1920s and 1930s, in his studio and around Cologne, Germany, August Sander (1876 – 1964) photographed every type of person he came across, in an attempt to capture the then-changing and diverse German society as a whole, in a project entitled “People of the 20th Century.” This endeavor is largely considered to be one of the most monumental collective portraits created in photographic history. Sander presented each of his subjects as entirely individual within their respective categories: F