August Sander
1929
Inventor [the dadaist Raoul Hausmann] (Erfinder [Der Dadaist Raoul Hausmann])

Gelatin silver print
23 × 17.8 cm (9 1/16 × 7 in.)
 
J. Paul Getty Museum
© J. Paul Getty Trust, Object Number: 84.XM.126.154
 
(Curatorial description, 15 December 2021)
Sander placed this portrait of Raoul Hausmann (German, 1886-1971) in his portfolio of technicians and inventors to conclude the section on skilled tradesmen in People of the Twentieth Century. Hausmann was the cofounder of Dada in Berlin, an art movement based on deliberate irrationality and the rejection of tradition. Sander might also have chosen to place Hausmann in the section on artists, but the categories he created--architect, sculptor, painter--did not accommodate the inventiveness of Hausmann's work: photo collage, sound poems, and other forms of expression that embraced new technologies.
 
LL/116441