205
Bernd and Hilla Becher
Water Towers
- Estimate
- $80,000 - 120,000
$162,500
Lot Details
Six gelatin silver prints, mounted to board, printed and assembled no later than 1997.
1968-1984
Each 15 3/4 x 12 1/8 in. (40 x 30.8 cm)
Overall 47 1/4 x 61 3/4 in. (120 x 156.8 cm)
Overall 47 1/4 x 61 3/4 in. (120 x 156.8 cm)
Signed by both artists in pencil on a sequence map accompanying the work.
Specialist
Full-Cataloguing
Catalogue Essay
Titles include:
Toledo, Ohio, USA, 1984; Youngstown, Ohio, USA, 1980; Akron, Ohio, USA, 1980; Leeds, GB, 1968; Mannheim-Neu-Ostheim, D, 1978; Carmaux, France, 1984
"The emotional ingredient in the Bechers’ work is in the intelligence and truthfulness with which they understand and chronicle the emotions of seriousness. Seriousness is inherent in industrial structures because they usually deal with the primordial forces of earth, air, fire, and water…"
Weston J. Naef, The Art of Bernd and Hilla Becher essay in Water Towers
Toledo, Ohio, USA, 1984; Youngstown, Ohio, USA, 1980; Akron, Ohio, USA, 1980; Leeds, GB, 1968; Mannheim-Neu-Ostheim, D, 1978; Carmaux, France, 1984
"The emotional ingredient in the Bechers’ work is in the intelligence and truthfulness with which they understand and chronicle the emotions of seriousness. Seriousness is inherent in industrial structures because they usually deal with the primordial forces of earth, air, fire, and water…"
Weston J. Naef, The Art of Bernd and Hilla Becher essay in Water Towers
Provenance
Literature
Bernd and Hilla Becher
GermanHusband and wife Bernd and Hilla Becher began photographing buildings and relics of the Industrial Revolution, such as coal mines and cooling towers, in 1959. Like objective scientists removing a specimen from the field, the Bechers framed their subject in a manner that isolated it from its environment. Often, these stark, beautifully detailed prints were then displayed in grid-like structures, forming stunning 'Typologies'.By the time Bernd Becher became a professor at the Düsseldorf Art Academy in 1976 (policy would not allow Hilla to be a simultaneous appointment), the Bechers' photographs, with their seemingly neutral point of view and serial display, were already being applauded by the international art world as important works of Minimal and Conceptual Art.
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