Bernd and Hilla Becher - Photographs New York Wednesday, October 12, 2022 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

  • Exhibited

    A major retrospective of Bernd and Hilla Becher's work is currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York until 6 November 2022.

    Bernd and Hilla Becher, Dia Art Center, New York, 14 December 1989 - 21 June 1991

  • Literature

    Te Neues, Bernd and Hilla Becher: Basic Forms, pl. 33

  • Catalogue Essay

    Bernd and Hilla Becher, Dia Art Center, New York, 14 December 1989 - 21 June 1991 - Departing from their characteristic installation style of typological groupings, the Becher exhibited about 70 works arranged separately. The emphasis was thereby placed on each individual photograph, rather than multiple images together.

  • 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.

    View More Works

53

Hot Blast Stoves, Steel Plant, Duisberg-Meiderich, Germany

1986
Gelatin silver print, printed 1989.
23 5/8 x 17 1/8 in. (60 x 43.5 cm)
Signed by both artists, titled and dated in pencil on the verso. Number one from an edition of five.

Estimate
$12,000 - 18,000 

Sold for $23,940

Contact Specialist

Sarah Krueger
Head of Department, Photographs, New York
skrueger@phillips.com


Vanessa Hallett
Worldwide Head of Photographs and Deputy Chairwoman, Americas
vhallett@phillips.com

Photographs

New York Auction 12 October 2022