[Osram Light Bulbs]
Photography itself makes the case for artificial light in this commission for the German manufacturer Osram. Leveraging the camera’s codependence on their products, the lightbulb company sought out experimental practitioners, including August Sander, to promote the transformative potential of illumination. Sander is best known as the great portraitist of German society between the wars, but the commercial projects that supported his studio remain obscure. With a simple shift in perspective, he radically reorients viewer and subject, abstracting a spiral staircase into a swirl of pearls. His hypnotic image reveals how the shock and pleasure of modernist aesthetics—of looking for its own sake—could seamlessly convey the joys of consumption.
Artwork Details
- Title: [Osram Light Bulbs]
- Artist: August Sander (German, 1876–1964)
- Date: ca. 1930
- Medium: Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions: 29.5 x 22.9 cm (11 5/8 x 9 in.)
Frame: 22 1/2 x 18 1/2 in. - Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987
- Object Number: 1987.1100.45
- Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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August Sander
1930s
August Sander
1930s
August Sander
1926
August Sander
ca. 1934
August Sander
1925–26
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