Bernd and Hilla Becher - Photographs New York Monday, July 13, 2020 | Phillips
  • Provenance

    Phillips de Pury & Company, New York, 31 January 2008, lot 232

  • Literature

    Lange, Bernd and Hilla Becher: Life and Work, pl. 12
    teNeues, Bernd and Hilla Becher: Basic Forms, pl. 3

  • 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

18

Cooling tower, steelworks, Haspe district, Hagen, Germany

1969
Offset lithograph, printed later.
15 7/8 x 13 in. (40.3 x 33 cm)
Signed by both artists and numbered 31/60 in pencil in the margin.

Estimate
$5,000 - 7,000 

Sold for $21,250

Contact Specialist

Sarah Krueger
Head of Department, Photographs

Vanessa Hallett
Worldwide Head of Photographs and Deputy Chairwoman, Americas

+212 940 1245
 

Photographs

New York Auction 13 July 2020