"Nel Medioevo si scatenò una celebre disputa tra dotti. Sono trascorsi mille anni. I contendenti si dicevano nominalisti e realisti. Indubbiamente questa disputa continua a valere anche ai giorni nostri, sebbene i termini siano mutati. È arduo dire in breve di cosa si trattasse, perché sono trascorsi tanti secoli, e perché nel frattempo le parole hanno mutato il loro senso, ma possiamo sintetizzare a grandi linee il conflitto: i nominalisti ritenevano che solo le entità particolari siano reali ed esistenti, mentre i realisti sostenevano che solo i concetti generali, gli universali - diciamo il genere o l'idea -, siano effettivamente reali ed esistenti. In che modo questa disputa investe i volti e le immagini? Lo dirò più avanti, dopo aver analizzato due tipi di livellamento: il livellamento che accomuna i volti umani nella morte e il livellamento esercitato dalla società e dalla classe a cui gli individui appartengono. Che cosa intendo per livellamento? La cancellazione delle diversità private e personali, l'annullamento di tali diversità sotto l'impronta formativa di una forza più potente, o meglio di due forze, quella della morte e quella della società umana." (Dallo scritto di Alfred Döblin)

One of the legendary classics among German photography books, August Sander's Face of Our Time, is now available again. Compiled by August Sander himself, the book was first published in 1929, with a foreword by German writer Alfred Dublin. On its first publication, it was advertised as follows: "The sixty shots of twentieth-century Germans which the author includes in his Face of Our Time represent only a small selection drawn from August Sander's major work, which he began in 1910 and which he has spent twenty years producing and adding fresh nuances to. The author has not approached this immense self-imposed task from an academic standpoint, nor with scientific aids, and has received advice neither from racial theorists nor from social researchers. He has approached his task as a photographer from his own immediate observations of human nature and human appearances, of the human environment, and with an infallible instinct for what is genuine and essential.

The long life of German photographer August Sander (1876-1964) spanned one of the most turbulent eras in his country's history. The Great War of 1914-1918, the Weimar Republic, the reign of National Socialism, and the horrors of World War II all left an indelible imprint on both the man and his work. Sander, a conventional studio portraitist who transformed himself into an avant-gardist, exemplified the complex and sometimes contradictory nature of his time. He was at once innovative and deeply wedded to the past, blending a progressive vision with a traditional view of society and his craft.
The approximately fifty plates featured in In Focus: August Sander are some of the most striking from the Getty Museum's more than twelve hundred pictures by the artist. They include images of rural dwellers such as those found in Young Farmers and Farm Girls, and other portraits including Wife of the Cologne Painter Peter Abelen, Parliamentarianand the poignant Blind Children, D�ren. A chronological overview of Sander's life provides a factual framework for this discussion.