- Becher, Bernd
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▪ 2008German photographerborn Aug. 20, 1931, Siegen, Ger.died June 22, 2007, Rostock, Ger.together with his wife, Hilla, depicted functional postindustrial structures—including water towers, steel mills, blast furnaces, and grain elevators—in black-and-white images that captured the stark elegance of the objects without romanticism or artistic embellishment. Many of the structures that the pair photographed—they referred to them as “anonymous sculptures”—were later destroyed, and only their images were left as documentary evidence. Becher studied painting and lithography at the Staatliche Kunstakademie in Stuttgart (1953–56) and typography at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (1957–61) and meanwhile worked at a Düsseldorf advertising agency, where he met Hilla Wobeser (they were married in 1961). Because the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf did not offer courses in photography, the Bechers developed their own program, traveling around in a van to record the industrial landscape, first with a Rolleiflex and later with a large plate camera. Their first exhibition was in Siegen in 1963. The pair settled in Düsseldorf, where Bernd became professor of photography (1976–96) at the Kunstakademie and influenced a generation of young conceptual artists. The Bechers were awarded the Golden Lion for sculpture at the 1991 Venice Biennale, and in 2004 they won the Hasselblad Foundation International Award.
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Universalium. 2010.
