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Timm Rautert´s 1974 series "Germans in Uniform", presenting a range of Germans in their professional attire in both a sociological and ironic manner, was first published in German by Steidl in 2006, and is now available in English in this expanded version. For his project Rautert invited a range of public servants and officials to his Düsseldorf studio, where he photographed them in their work clothes-from a pastor, monk, Red Cross helper and hotel valet, to a more flamboyant drum major, forest warden and even a Santa Claus. Rautert depicts his subjects before the same neutral backdrop with similar framing and perspective, thus emphasizing how they reveal their characters beyond their uniforms. Below each photo are the subject´s name, age and profession; at times personal quotes from conversations with Rautert during the shoot are also included. The result today is at once a complex portrait of post-war Germany, a nostalgic historical document, and an expression of the interplay between uniformity and personality that continues to shape society.

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Timm Rautert was born in 1941 in Tuchola, West Prussia, and today lives and works in Berlin and Essen. Rautert studied under Otto Steinert at the Folkwang School of Design in Essen, and from 1993 to 2007 was a professor of photography at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig. His books with Steidl include When We Don´t See You, You Don´t See Us Either (2007), No Photographing (2011), Josef Sudek, Prague 1967 (2016) and Vintage (2017). In 2008 Rautert was the first photographer to be awarded the Lovis Corinth Award.

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