In a pursuit to document and immortalise the German society of the 20th century, Sander sought out to photograph ‘archetypes’. This was what eventually resulted in his seminal People of the 20th Century series. He divided his sitters into categories in a typological fashion: ‘The Farmer’, ‘The Skilled Tradesman’, ‘The Woman’, ‘Classes and Professions’, ‘The City’, and ‘The Last People’ and ‘The Artists’. In the latter is where we find his magnificent pieces, The Painter and The Dancer.