Bernd and Hilla Becher - Photographs New York Wednesday, October 12, 2022 | Phillips
  • "The Bechers were unequivocally artists, not scientists, but they used an almost Linnean system of classification – an important eighteenth-century precedent for their work – in which each photograph is treated like a botanical or zoological specimen."
    —Jeff Rosenheim

    • Provenance

      Sonnabend Gallery, New York

    • 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.

    • Literature

      MIT Press, Water Towers, p. 217
      MIT Press, Bernd and Hilla Becher: Typologies, cover and pl. 1
      Schirmer/ Mosel, Bernd and Hilla Becher: Tipologie, Typologien, Typologies, pl. 15
      Pompidou, Bernd et Hilla Becher, pl. 1
      Fraenkel Gallery, Open Secrets, p. 26

    • 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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50

Water Tower (Wasserturm), Herve/Liège, B

1971
Gelatin silver print, printed 1995.
23 7/8 x 19 1/8 in. (60.6 x 48.6 cm)
Signed 'B + H Becher,' titled, dated and numbered 5/5 in pencil on the verso.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$15,000 - 25,000 

Sold for $18,900

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