Photography Appreciation
Hilla Wobeser was born on September 2, 1934, in Potsdam, Germany, into a family of photographers; her mother and uncle introduced her to the darkroom early on. She began photography at thirteen using a plate camera and even sold small portrait prints of her high-school teachers.
After being expelled from school, she apprenticed under Walter Eichgrün in Potsdam starting in 1951, studying at a vocational photography school while completing her high-school degree. In 1954, she relocated to West Germany and worked freelance in Hamburg before moving to Düsseldorf in 1958, enrolling in the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf to study graphic design and printing, she later led darkroom instruction there.
At Düsseldorf, Hilla met Bernd Becher in 1957. They began collaborating by 1959, photographing industrial sites across Europe and later North America. The couple married in 1961 and worked as a team for nearly 15 years, documenting industrial structures -- water towers, blast furnaces, coal tipples, framework houses -- referencing them as "anonymous sculptures." They established the Düsseldorf School of Photography and influenced many students, like Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Thomas Ruff.
Hilla and Bernd Becher's hallmark method was serial typologies -- grids or series of black and white images shot in neutral light, with precise framing and large-format cameras. Key works include Framework Houses (1959-1973), featuring timber-framed miner dwellings, and Water Towers (1968-1980), a series of nine-image grids.
Sources:
Wikipedia
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/849258
https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/500
https://fraenkelgallery.com/artists/bernd-and-hilla-becher
https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/group/103KGG
https://www.paulacoopergallery.com/news/james-welling-bernd-hilla-becher
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/what-bernd-and-hilla-becher-saw-in-the-remnants-of-industry
https://metropolismag.com/viewpoints/bernd-and-hilla-becher-architectural-photographs/
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