Farm Women (Bauern Frauen)

Portrait and documentary photographer August Sander photographed typologies of people from all walks of life. Best known for his non-studio works, Sander would leave his urban studio near Cologne, Germany and travel by bike to photograph the people of his native Westerwald. His life’s work, Man of the Twentieth Century, is a monumental series of 600 portraits. Despite their exacting descriptions, his photographs were celebrated among the surrealists because of their “uncanniness.” This characteristic also made them controversial, because the people pictured did not embody the Nazi Aryan ideals, and the works were therefore banned by the Nazis. From 1934 onwards, Sander turned primarily to nature and architecture as his subjects.