Farmer, Westerwald, Germany

August Sander

1913

Gelatin silver print

Minneapolis Institute of Art

A seated elderly man with a full white beard and spectacles holds a book and glasses. He is dressed in a dark suit, vest, and tie. A seated elderly man with a full white beard and spectacles holds a book and glasses. He is dressed in a dark suit, vest, and tie. 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: Farmers, W