Recipient of Welfare Assistance 1930

August Sander made this photograph, a silver gelatin print, of a man called "Recipient of Welfare Assistance." What really grabs me is the texture and the play of light. Sander wasn’t hiding anything, he wasn’t trying to pretty things up. It’s stark, it’s real, it’s about process of seeing, of unflinching observation. Look at the way the light falls on the wall behind him, creating a soft, almost painterly shadow. And then there are his hands, clasped tightly in front of him, the knuckles prominent, the skin worn. Those hands tell a story. They speak of labor, of hardship, of resilience. Sander saw something profound in the everyday, in the faces and bodies of ordinary people. He reminds me a little of Walker Evans, another photographer who found beauty in the mundane. But Sander has a directness, a kind of unvarnished honesty, that’s all his own. It’s a reminder that art doesn’t always have to be beautiful in the traditional sense. Sometimes it just needs to be true.