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Bernd + Hilla Becher

SELECTED WORKS
Hochofen (Blast Furnaces), Image V from the series: Typologies
2007
Digital pigment print (Ditone) on photo paper

Image size:  27 5/8 x 36 3/4 inches  (70.2 x 93.3 cm)
Paper size:  35 1/2 x 44 1/4 inches  (90 x 112 cm)
Edition of 40
Signed “B + H Becher” and numbered all on verso
(Inventory #28383)

Kies- und Schotterwerke (Gravel Plants), Image III from the series: Typologies
2006
Digital pigment print (Ditone) on photo paper

Edition of 40
Paper size: 35 1/2 x 44 1/4 inches (90 x 112 cm)
Signed “B Becher” and “Hilla Becher” numbered on verso
(Inventory #33963)

Aufbereitungsanlagen (Preparation Plants) Image VI from series: Typologies
2008
Digital pigment print (Ditone) on photo paper

Edition of 40
Paper size: 35 1/2 x 43 1/4 inches (90 x 110 cm)
Signed “B+ H Becher”and numbered on verso by H. Becher
(Inventory #33964)

Förderturm Zeche Waltrop, 1982 from the portfolio Forty Are Better Than One
2009
Five-part leporello, digital pigment print (Ditone) on Hahnemühle Baryta paper

Edition of 75
Image/paper size: 12 5/8 x 49 1/4 inches (32.1 x 125.1 cm)
Signed “”B+H Becher” and numbered by Hilla Becher on label on reverse
(Inventory #33965)

Additional Information

Bernd Becher
b. 1931, Siegen district, Germany; d. 2007, Rostock, Germany

Hilla Becher
b. 1934, Berlin

Bernd Becher was born August 20, 1931, in Siegen, Germany. He studied painting and lithography at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Stuttgart from 1953 to 1956 and studied typography at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 1957 to 1961. Hilla Becher was born Hilla Wobeser on September 2, 1934, in Potsdam, Germany. She studied painting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where she met Bernd Becher. The two artists first collaborated in 1959 and were married in 1961. They began working as freelance photographers, concentrating on industrial photography.

From their first series of photographs of water towers, the artists have not veered from architectural portraiture subjects, using both industrial and domestic structures such as gas tanks, silos, framework houses, and the like. They were given their first gallery show in 1963 at the Galerie Ruth Nohl in Siegen and by 1968 were exhibiting in the United States as well as in European cities outside Germany. In 1972, the artists began showing at the Sonnabend Gallery, New York. In 1974, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, organized an exhibition of their work, which toured the United Kingdom. The couple was invited to participate in Documenta in Kassel in 1972, 1977, and 1982, and at the São Paulo Bienal in 1977. The Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, organized a retrospective of the artists’ work in 1981. In 1985, the artists had a major museum exhibition, which traveled to the Museum Folkwang Essen, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Liège, Belgium. In 1991, the artists won the Leone d’Oro award for sculpture at the Venice Biennale. (In 1969, the artists had called the architectural subject matter of their photographs anonymous sculpture.) The Venice installation was reworked later in 1991, in a retrospective exhibition at the Kunstverein, Cologne. The Typologies installation was exhibited again in 1994 at the Ydessa Hendeles Art Foundation, Toronto.

Text written by the Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York

Syntheses

March 31, 2018
- May 5, 2018

Featuring works by Richard Artschwager, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Tara Donovan, Idris Khan, Kay Rosen, Lorna Simpson, Haim Steinbach, and Sarah Sze

Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) Art Show 2017

March 1, 2017
- March 5, 2017

 

 

 

Correspondences

September 10, 2016
- October 15, 2016

Featuring works by Bernd & Hilla Becher, Seton Smith, and a collection of postcards of Boston’s Old State House

Additive Logic

June 13, 2015
- July 24, 2015

Featuring works by Bernd & Hilla Becher, Mel Bochner, Dan Flavin, Sol LeWitt, Kay Rosen, Ed Ruscha, Richard Tuttle, and Franz Erhard Walther

 PAR  PAR
S      E     T

January 28, 2012
- March 10, 2012

Featuring works by Josef Albers, Robert Barry, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Tara Donovan, Frank Egloff, Dan Flavin, On Kawara, Sol LeWitt, Allan McCollum, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Kay Rosen, Ed Ruscha, and Fred Sandback

IN ON UNDER ABOVE AND WITH

January 23, 2010
- March 13, 2010

Featuring works by Christiane Baumgartner, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Frank Egloff, Sol LeWitt, Allan McCollum, and Suara Welitoff

International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) Art Show 2009

November 5, 2009
- November 8, 2009

International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) Art Fair 2007

October 31, 2007
- November 4, 2007