Lot 11
  • 11

August Sander

Estimate
150,000 - 250,000 USD
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Description

  • August Sander
  • 'werkstudenten'
the photographer's 'Köln Lindenthal' blindstamp on the image, mounted to laid paper, numbered '99' in an unidentified hand in red crayon on the reverse, with a vellum overmat attached to the mount, signed, titled, and dated by the photographer in pencil on the overmat, the photographer's 'Aug. Sander Köln-Lindenthal Dürener Str. 201.' studio label on the reverse, matted, framed, 1926

Provenance

Galerie Wilde, Cologne

Hendrik Berinson, Berlin

Sander Gallery, New York

Acquired by the Quillan Company from the above, 1990

Literature

Jill Quasha, The Quillan Collection of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Photographs (New York, 1991), pl. 69 (this print)

Other prints of this image:

Antlitz der Zeit: Sechzig Aufnahmen Deutscher Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts von August Sander (München, 1929), pl. 26

Gunther Sander, ed., August Sander: Citizens of the Twentieth Century, Portrait Photographs, 1892-1952 (Cambridge and London, 1997), p. 200

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

Manfred Heiting, August Sander, 1876-1974 (Köln, 1999), p. 78

August Sander: 'In Photography, There Are No Unexplained Shadows!' (London: National Portrait Gallery, 1996, in conjunction with the exhibition), p. 98

Condition

This print is on double-weight paper with a semi-glossy surface. It is essentially in excellent condition. When the print is examined closely in raking light, a faint linear 4 ½-inch scratch, not breaking the emulsion, is visible in the lower right quadrant of the image. Also visible in raking light is a faint crease adjacent to the elbow of the middle left subject. This print has Sander's typical presentation: it is mounted to a sheet of paper, and overmatted with vellum-like paper. When the print is examined very closely, some very faint adhesive residue is visible along the extreme bottom edge of the image. None of these condition issues diminish the impact of this sensitively-rendered early print. The original overmat is quite clean.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Catalogue Note

The photograph offered here, an early print executed by August Sander, depicts the photographer's son Erich, and his friends Richard Kreutzberg, Hans Schoemann, and Georg Hansen, all of whom were political radicals and dedicated members of the Communist party.  Erich Sander was arrested in 1934 by the National Socialists and later died in ill health in prison.  The fate of his friends was equally representative of the tumultuous period in which they lived: Kreutzberg committed suicide in 1933, Schoemann worked in the underground resistance during the war, and Hansen was imprisoned in London in 1932 for espionage in the service of the U.S.S.R.

The image Werkstudenten, taken in 1926, was included in Sander's seminal publication, Antlitz der Zeit [Face of the Time], published in Munich in 1929The book of sixty photographs was intended as a straightforward and unidealized social document of his time, and was referred to by Sander as a 'physiognomy of people.'  The book would come to the attention of the Nazis a few years later, perhaps because it showed the German public as diverse, rather than homogeneous.  In 1934, the remaining publisher's copies of Antlitz der Zeit were seized by Hitler's Ministry of Culture and the halftone printing plates destroyed.  This might have been avoided had Sander not assisted his son Erich with the publication of Communist leaflets shortly before.  Now considered one of the great documentary projects in the history of photography, the book has been extremely influential to artists as diverse as Diane Arbus and Bernd and Hilla Becher, and was the precursor to Sander's later work, namely his unrealized Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts [Citizens of the Twentieth Century].  

Close comparison of the print offered here with the reproduction of the same image in Antlitz der Zeit suggests that it is this early state of the image that was used in the first edition of the book.  The print's distinguishing characteristics include a vertical line of the photographer's original retouching behind the head of the second figure on the left, as well as other small areas of retouching and a small mark at the top left edge of the print.  All of these marks, presumably unique to this print, correspond to the Antlitz der Zeit illustration.  These identifiers do not appear in subsequent reproductions of the image.