August Sander

Collection of the photographer

Collection of Sigrid Sander Biow, the photographer’s daughter

Sotheby's New York, 8 October 1997, Sale 7024, Lot 252

Gunther Sander, August Sander: Photographer Extraordinary (London, 1973), unpaginated

Gunther Sander, ed., August Sander: Citizens of the Twentieth Century: Portrait Photographs, 1892-1952 (Cambridge, 1986), p. 382

Dienstmann is included in ‘The City – Servants,’ a subcategory of August Sander’s Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts (Citizens of the Twentieth Century), a monument in the history of photography. The term ‘Dienstmann’ was first used in the middle ages and over time referred to a hired man working for a household or company who carried out tasks such as handling baggage or delivering messages.

In 1929, Sander announced his plan to create a collective portrait of the German populace that was thoroughly objective, unsentimental, and unprejudiced. His stated goal was nothing less than ‘. . . to be honest and tell the truth about our age and its people.’  Sander’s project and its inclusive scope, however, brought him to the attention of the German authorities. In 1934, the Reich Chamber of Arts ordered the destruction of the printing plates for his magnum opus, Antlitz der Zeit, and the seizure of all copies, effectively halting Sander’s picture-making. 

This lifetime print comes originally from the collection of the photographer’s daughter, Sigrid Sander Biow. Sander’s home studio in Cologne was destroyed in a 1944 air raid, and surviving prints from the 1920s or 1930s are scarce.