August Sander - The most influential portrait photographer

“In photography there are no shadows that cannot be illuminated.”
                                                                          August Sander

August Sander is a key figure in the history of photography and his influence as a photographer can be felt across the 20th century through the work of Diane Arbus, Walker Evans and Bernd and Hilla Becher. It continues to fascinate today.

August Sander’s most significant project was ‘The People of the Twentieth Century’. Sander wanted to create an encyclopaedic survey of different types of people from the first half of the twentieth century. His working life in Germany spanned the First World War, the interwar years, the rise of the Nazi party, the Second World War and its aftermath.
His photographs are unflinching documents of a society going through huge change. The work reflects both the catastrophic political convulsions that Germany was enduring and a society slowly coming to terms with the impact of industrialisation. The clarity and breadth of his vision remains powerful and his vocational portraits still resonate today. 
 http://www.leicester.gov.uk/augustsander/

 Photographs that shaped history...

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2010/08/index.html

http://eglalili.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/august-sander/

 Pastry Cook, 1928

http://www.galleryhopper.org/?p=36

Bricklayer, 1928

 Middle Class Child, 1927

http://theredlist.fr/wiki-2-16-601-788-view-portrait-1-profile-sander.html

 Varnisher, 1930

http://theredlist.fr/wiki-2-16-601-788-view-portrait-1-profile-sander.html