Photo of the Week #333

January 20, 2025
Certain photographs seem eager to tell us things. In this fine portrait by August Sander, we're drawn in by the emphasis on both emotion and family resemblance so that, even before we know that the photo portrays a widower, we're immediately invited to reflect on the ties of family, as well as the experience of age and, ultimately, loss.

When this photo was made in 1914, August Sander was in the early years of his lifelong series People of the 20th Century, which he initiated as a way to create a sprawling catalog of people from across German society. The dual nature of Sander's work is evident here: on one hand it was resolutely typological in the way that it organized German citizens within different social categories, while at the same time his portraits feel like intimate depictions of individuals.

Sander included this photo within the section of the project that he called “The Woman”, emphasizing the absent wife and mother in this photo, who is also present in the wounded looks on all their faces. A particularly insightful feature of Sander's project is that the same subjects reappeared at times in different categories, highlighting how people function in more than one role in society. In this case, the grieving father would appear in the series again, years later, as ‘The Pastry Cook’ in his group devoted to ‘The Skilled Tradesman’.