Bernd and Hilla Becher - Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale London Friday, March 7, 2025 | Phillips

Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale

London Auction 7 March 2025

  • "I was very fascinated by industrial buildings...slowly we developed this idea to photograph them with a larger camera and it was very static. And since I had learned photography in a very old-fashioned way in the east of Germany, it was very satisfying to have this quality… to have this fine grain and the beautiful grey. There were all kinds of things like coal mines, blast furnaces, gas tanks, everything that had to do with steel industry and the big subjects of water towers.”
    — Hilla Becher

    • Provenance

      Private Collection, Europe
      Christie's, South Kensington, 11 December 1997, lot 170
      Private Collection
      Baronian Gallery, Brussels
      Acquired from the above by the present owner

    • 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

180

Bernd and Hilla Becher

Puits Monceau Fontaine No. 14, Charleroi, Belgien

signed 'Bernd Becher Hilla Becher' lower right; consecutively numbered on the reverse of each part
gelatin silver print, in 4 parts, mounted to card
each: 30.4 x 41.5 cm (11 7/8 x 16 3/8 in.)
overall: 69.9 x 89.9 cm (27 1/2 x 35 3/8 in.)
Executed in 1972.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
£30,000 - 50,000 ‡♠

Contact Specialist

Simon Tovey
Director, Head of Day Sale, London
+44 7502 428 688
stovey@phillips.com

Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale

London Auction 7 March 2025