Bernd and Hilla Becher - Photographs New York Tuesday, October 1, 2019 | Phillips
  • Provenance

    Ehlers Caudill Gallery, Chicago, 1993

  • Artist Biography

    Bernd and Hilla Becher

    German • Bernd 1931-2007 - Hilla 1934-2015

    Husband 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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178

Blast Furnace Plant, Lübeck-Herrenwyk, Germany

1983
Gelatin silver print.
16 1/4 x 24 1/4 in. (41.3 x 61.6 cm)
Signed by both artists, titled, dated and numbered 1/5 in pencil on the verso.

Estimate
$12,000 - 18,000 

Sold for $15,000

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Photographs

New York Auction 1 October 2019