"Hochofen, Hainer Hütte, Siegen". 1961/printed 1971. Vintage large-format ferrotyped gelatin silver print. 39,5 x 30 cm. Mounted to original board, signed by the photographers in pencil on mount verso, framed under glass in wooden frame. |
Losnummer: 4092
The German conceptual artists and photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher, worked as a collaborative duo. They are renowned for their extensive series of photographic images, or typologies, of industrial buildings and structures. As the founders of the "Becher School" or the Düsseldorf School of Photography, they influenced generations of documentary photographers and artists in Germany and abroad. By the mid-1960s they arrived at a preferred presentational mode: the images of structures with similar functions were then displayed side by side often in grids of six, nine or fifteen to invite viewers to compare their forms and designs based on function, regional idiosyncrasies, or the age of the structures. The Bechers used the term "typology" to describe these ordered sets of photographs.
While the Bechers are primarily known for their typological series, single images, such as the one offered here, stand out. This image is of particular interest as it was taken in Bernd Becher's birthplace Siegen in 1961, coinciding with the year of Bernd and Hilla Becher's marriage. – Minimal surface scuff mark in upper left sky area, only visible in raking light, otherwise a fine tonal print in near excellent condition.
Provenance: Private Collection, Siegen
Lit.: Susanne Lange. Was wir tun, ist letzlich Geschichten erzählen... Bernd und Hilla Becher. Eine Einführung in Leben und Werk. Munich 2005, ill. plate 7, p. 104.
Ariane Grigoteit (ed.). Bernd & Hilla Becher. Mainz 1998, ill. p. 83.
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