Mural for a Photographer (Wandbild für einen Fotografen)

Franz Wilhelm Seiwert painted Mural for a Photographer as a tribute to both the medium of photography and the photographer August Sander, the work’s first owner. Schematically depicting the operation of a large-format camera—from finding a subject to producing a black-andwhite print (seen at bottom right)—the painting draws parallels between photographic reproduction and the human life cycle. Seiwert was a founding member of the Cologne Progressives, a group of artists who turned away from the total abstraction practiced by their contemporaries. Instead, they developed an easily legible and quasi-abstract style that all members of society could understand, regardless of their prior experience with art. Using unsentimental imagery to advance progressive social themes, the artists instilled painting with the democratic potential of photography.