Helmar Lerski’s Everyday Heads (German: Köpfe des Alltags), created in Germany during the late Weimar Republic (1928–1931) and published as a photobook in 1931, explores identity and humanity through the lens of close-up portraiture. The project comprises 80 black-and-white photographs of anonymous working-class individuals in Berlin, including charwomen, beggars, and textile workers, deliberately stripped of social context and photographed with dramatic lighting techniques to evoke a universal essence. This was Lerski’s first photobook, released at a time when he was already a significant figure in Weimar-era photography and film, with his background in filmmaking influencing the theatrical and expressionistic qualities of the portraits.
Set against the backdrop of the turbulent Weimar Republic, a period marked by political instability, economic crises, and social upheaval, the series reflects the era’s preoccupation with physiognomy, social typologies, and identity. In contrast to contemporaries like August Sander, whose typological portraits aimed to classify individuals within their social roles, Lerski’s Everyday Heads sought to transcend societal categories. His work challenges the popular physiognomic belief that a person’s character and social standing could be determined by their facial features. By presenting his subjects as theatrical figures, with their professions listed as interchangeable roles, the project critiques these reductive notions, emphasizing the fluid and constructed nature of identity.
Lerski’s artistic intent was to uncover what he described as the "deeper inner person", rejecting the notion of identity as fixed or defined by social context. His tightly cropped frames, often partially cutting off facial features, direct the viewer’s focus to specific details—a furrowed brow, textured skin, or expressive eyes. The absence of backgrounds or identifying markers reinforces the subjects' shared humanity, allowing viewers to see beyond societal labels.
Technically, Lerski’s use of dramatic, often lateral lighting and carefully controlled reflections was innovative. He employed mirrors, screens, and artificial light to create chiaroscuro effects, enhancing the texture and form of his subjects' faces. Occasionally applying Vaseline-based ointments to heighten the skin’s reflectiveness, he transformed ordinary working-class individuals into monumental, almost mythic figures.
First presented in key Weimar-era exhibitions—Film und Foto (Stuttgart, 1929), a dedicated show at the Kunstbibliothek (Berlin, 1930), and Das Lichtbild (Munich, 1931)—the series was published as Lerski’s first photobook (1931). Contemporary interest led to early museum acquisitions, and prints are now held in major collections such as the George Eastman Museum.
