In spring 1927 August Sander travelled to Sardinia, to a 'mighty, captivatingly sombre land' (Lothar Mathar). His photographs were to illustrate a cultural-historical treatise, 'Sardinia, the Unknown Isle', by the Cologne writer Lothar Mathar, who both commissioned and underwrote the project. The publication was never realised, but the three months Sander spent between Porto Torres and Cagliari produced an intense chronicle of the Sardinian people and their culture: looking into the faces of the rural population, across landscapes and at significant monuments such as the Romanesque basilica San Gavino and the Abbey of Santissima Trinità di Saccargia. From the impressively unassuming Journey to Sardinia, published here for the first time, this volume has drawn together a representative selection of 30 motifs by this major pioneer of modern photography.