Accompanying the exhibition at Kunstmuseum Stuttgart the catalogue takes an in-depth look at the New Objectivity type portrait in the historical context of the Weimar period (1918-1933). In numerous portraits, artists such as Otto Dix, George Grosz, Jeanne Mammen and Hanna Nagel put the social type that the portrayed person represented in their eyes in the foreground. These portrayals were significantly influenced by an omnipresent debate in the Weimar Republic: the search for the 'face of the times'. In the exhibition, 'role models' of the 1920s, such as the 'New Woman' or the 'New Man', are examined in their complexity. It becomes obvious that many of the cliched ideas of the time still have an effect today.