Bernd and Hilla Becher: United force for photographic art and the aesthetics of industrial documentation

Without a doubt: The most important photographic artists in the world

A statement so absurd in its absoluteness that its content can only be false? Yes, of course, but:

Bernd and Hilla Becher currently rank 144th on Artfacts' list of the world's best artists and, until just a few years ago, were among the top 100 artists in the world. They thus belong to the crème de la crème of the art world, and have done so for a very long time.

Anyone who has experienced more than just the word "art" in knows Bernd and Hilla Becher (even if many younger art enthusiasts no longer know exactly what they did...). Every artistic photographer in the world knows Bernd and Hilla Becher, their work, and details of their career.

Imagine the "almost" and "probably" and other limitations actually due to the need for balance; but that's roughly how it looks, because a good portion of the world's best photographers went through the "Becher School": Thomas Ruff is a photographic artist and No. 12 on the world's best list, Thomas Struth follows in 52nd place, Andreas Gursky is No. 55 and Candida Höfer No. 99.

Among the 100 most outstanding artists in the world, eight focus entirely on the medium of photography, four of whom come from the “Düsseldorf School” .

The remaining four ( Nan Goldin , Robert Mapplethorpe , Cindy Sherman , Wolfgang Tillmans ) had little chance of attending Bernd and Hilla Becher's "Düsseldorf School" , but they certainly had to deal with the special features of the photographic art taught by Bernd and Hilla Becher during their training.

Not a bad selection; and when the focus shifts from international to German photographic art, for a long time it was difficult to find a photographer who hadn't passed through Bernd and Hilla Becher's "brain and eye": Axel Hütte (No. 958), Jörg Sasse (No. 1144), Boris Becker (No. 1886), Bernhard Fuchs (No. 2385), Simone Nieweg (No. 3883), Elger Esser (No. 5749) and Petra Wunderlich (No. 8691), Laurenz Berges, Volker Döhne, Claus Goedicke, Claudia Fährenkemper, Tata Ronkholz – all well-known German photographers, all students of Becher.

Pioneering work for the art of photography

This – and not only the vast, revered body of photographic art left behind by Bernd and Hilla Becher – is also the real reason why connoisseurs of photographic art speak with reverence when they talk about Bernd and Hilla Becher: the two produced photographic art on an ongoing basis.

Bernd and Hilla Becher played a significant role in establishing these photographers as artists. They are, in fact, largely responsible for the fact that photography is classified as art by German art historians (and the media that follow them, and the public in German-speaking countries).

Bernd and Hilla Becher achieved the goal of allowing photographers to create art; they transformed photography into art.”

This was part of a development that had parallels in all art centers of the world. But in Germany, and indeed throughout the entire German cultural sphere, Bernd and Hilla Becher were among the key pioneers for the recognition of artistic photography.

Since the end of the 19th century, photographers have been striving to ensure that the works they have created can also be regarded as art.

Regardless of whether it is “only a purely photographic representation” or whether photography played a role as one of several media in the creation of a work of art.

Naturally, the photographers were able to achieve many successes on the path to recognition of “their art form”, because according to all common definitions of the concept of art, photographs can be works of art just as well as performances without movement, two-word poems or fat corners.

But even in the second half of the 20th century, one of the most influential sociologists of the time, the Frenchman Pierre Félix Bourdieu (1930 – 2002), described photography as “illegitimate art” ; as recently as 2014, a dissertation at the Free University of Berlin examined the problem of “photography between art and documentation”.

During the main creative period of Bernd and Hilla Becher (approx. 1960 to 2000), the art of photography still urgently needed leading artists and advocates (and today, with the signs pointing to restrictions on freedom, it will probably need them again soon).

To have a noticeable influence on giving photography a decisive push towards "acceptance as art," Bernd and Hilla Becher first had to become influential figures and photographic artists themselves. A monumental undertaking in their time, and not unwise to tackle it together

Bernd and Hilla Becher's path into art

One doesn't become an artist by chance, not even Bernd and Hilla Becher (although their careers have come pretty close to the idea of ​​"becoming art by chance"). Before Bernd and Hilla Becher became the artistic couple known as "Bernd and Hilla Becher," working together for the art of photography, they were both individuals.

Bernd Becher – from a craft apprenticeship to photographic art

Bernd Becher's real name is Bernhard Becher, he was born on August 20, 1931 in Siegen and was exposed to the craft side of art from an early age: His father owned a decorative painting business, where Bernd Becher initially completed an apprenticeship after school (1947 to 1950); perhaps with the idea that the craft would remain in the family.

After his apprenticeship, Bernd Becher spent some time in Italy for further training before studying free graphics at the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart from 1953 onwards, under Karl Rössing, among others. With the Austrian graphic artist and book illustrator Karl Rössing (1897–1987) as his teacher, the focus was more on art than on craft.

Rössing expressed himself through wood engravings (1917 to 1950), linocuts and woodblock prints (1950 to approximately 1983), paintings and drawings (1981 to 1987, and intermittently even in his early career), and despite these sometimes very traditional media, he was considered one of the progressive artists of the last century. He exhibited, for example, with the artists' association "Neue Sezession" in Munich, and participated in the "International Black and White Exhibition" of the Salzburg artists' association "Der Wassermann" in 1921 (together with Ernst Barlach, George Grosz, Alfred Kubin, and Käthe Kollwitz). He also took part in the legendary "Neue Sachlichkeit" in Mannheim in 1925.

Rössing's work tended to be surrealist, with echoes of New Objectivity and incorporating many suggestions from the latest films and literature; his unusually combined works from seemingly alien and mysterious worlds clearly belonged to the realm of art and not to commercial art.

Photographic documentation: Modern industrial monuments

Becher graduated as a state-certified freelance graphic artist under this man in 1956 and began around this time to draw the first industrial monuments of modernity, e.g. the footbridges, towers and stairs of the “Eisenhardter Tiefbau” mine in the Siegerland region (operations began on May 11, 1859, operations ceased on June 30, 1957).

These drawings prompted Bernd Becher to turn to photography: he wanted to fully capture the industrial complex in all its details, but did not have the time to make precise drawings because the demolition of the plant was beginning – which is why Becher borrowed a 35mm camera to “at least document the pit in photographs” .

This was the start of one of the most famous photo series of the 20th century , accompanied by a life in a field of tension between photography, art and documentation, which has not lost its relevance even today.

Before things really got underway, Becher added crucial technical skills to his artistic training: he trained as a typographer (1959 to 1961). This study of the art of designing printed works encompassed the design and combination of layout, typeface, paper selection, binding, etc. It would have a significant influence on the work he later developed in collaboration with his wife, Hilla.

Hilla Becher – first camera at age 13

Hilla Becher was born Hildegard Wobeser on September 2, 1934, in Potsdam. She grew up in an upper-middle-class family with three siblings. Through her mother, who trained as a photographer at the Lette-Verein in Berlin in the 1920s, she had early exposure to photography. At the age of 13, she held her first camera in her hands.

That was in 1947, and Hilla, who was of course destined for high school graduation, was to come into contact with professional photography sooner than expected: In her advanced pubescent years, she was expelled from school for “rebellious remarks” and was subsequently allowed/forced to begin a three-year apprenticeship as a photographer in the renowned Potsdam photo studio of Walter Eichgrün (1887–1957) from 1951 onwards.

The son of court photographer Ernst Eichgrün had just received the commission to document the Potsdam cityscape and the historic palace complexes of the Berlin suburb; trainee Hilla was allowed to assist with the photographs of the palaces and gardens of Sanssouci, and was thus already engaged in the photographic exploration of architecture and sculpture in the landscape in her earliest work.

The photographic dissection of industrial objects

Her first independently executed commission also foreshadowed the Bechers' later joint oeuvre: In a Reichsbahn repair shop, precise photographs with technical details of individual steam locomotive elements were needed in order to begin repairing the damage of the Second World War.

Hilla Becher photographed the larger objects in the depot and the smaller ones in her studio, discovering her talent for the subtle perception of material characteristics and her joy in developing suitable methods of representation. For her journeyman's examination, she submitted the documentation of a gasworks. The " photographic dissection" of industrial monuments would henceforth define her life.

How Hilla and Bernd became the Bechers

At the age of 20, Hilla Becher fled East Germany and landed in Hamburg. From 1954 to 1957, she worked there as a freelance photographer for a company that produced aerial photographs on commission. In 1957, Hilla Becher moved to the advertising agency Troost in Düsseldorf ( "Persil 59 – the best Persil ever" ), where she met her future husband, Bernd Becher, and her future professor, Walter Breker.

Graphic and typography professor Walter Breker worked as a typographer for the advertising agency alongside his professorship at the Düsseldorf Art Academy; his student Bernd Becher worked there during his studies at the same academy.

Through these connections, Hilla Becher dared to apply to the art academy with a portfolio consisting solely of photographs (a novelty never before tolerated). She was accepted in 1958. She attended the graphic design courses taught by Walter Breker, who in 1954, at the age of 50, was appointed professor and head of the graphic design class at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. This was the pinnacle of his career and his last position, which he held until his retirement in 1969.

With the experienced graphic designer and typographer Breker, who, in addition to (previous) teaching activities, had always remained firmly grounded in practical application and who was involved in national and international graphic designers' associations (Association of German Graphic Designers, Alliance Graphique Internationale), the self-confident aspiring artist had made a golden choice: He fostered her enthusiasm for photography to such an extent that Hilla Becher was not only able to establish the first photography workshop in the academy, but also that the medium of photography, alongside painting techniques, printmaking, woodworking or metalworking, became part of the general curriculum for all students.

Bernd Becher also studied under Breker and, like Hilla Becher, was captivated by the austere charm of the now-useless utilitarian buildings of modernism . Thus, in a graphic design course, two people with a passion for (the then-nonexistent) artistic industrial photography , one of whom was initiating the expansion of the curriculum to include photography – a probability comparable to two entomologists passionate about Cryptocephalus sericeus , the small green silky beetle, meeting in a course on the correct preparation of insects and subsequently jointly running the breeding and research station for small green silky beetles, established by one of them at the provider of the preparation course…

Bernd and Hilla Becher followed a similar path: They used the photography workshop Hilla had set up at the academy for their increasingly collaborative work and married in 1961. Although it was primarily Hilla who, alongside her own work, helped her husband realize various student projects with her profound expertise in camera technology and handling, as well as the setup and operation of darkrooms, her husband Bernd received a teaching appointment in 1976, thus becoming the first official holder of the first professorship for photography at the Düsseldorf Art Academy.

But Hilla was also fortunate in her choice of husband: Bernd Becher officially headed the photography class at the Düsseldorf Art Academy alone until 1996, but he evidently resisted the temptation to claim all the fame accruing from their joint artistic work for himself, in addition to the professorship (which rightfully belonged to Hilla; Bernd Becher remained more of a draftsman than a photographer at heart until the end of his life). He is said not to have even attempted the mechanisms common in the art world. That would probably have led to divorce at some point rather than over four decades of extremely fruitful collaboration.

The Becher School

This would have been a shame, because then the renowned Becher School , from which a long line of highly successful photographers emerged until the end of Hilla Becher's teaching career in 1996, would never have come into being. Hilla Becher was a central and equal part of this school. Even without a formal teaching position, her studio was always open to students, and her opinion was as highly valued as that of her husband.

Any disruption to the long and fruitful collaboration of the couple, who were born to document the fading industrial aesthetic, would also have been a loss for photographic art, because the two of them themselves left us some monumental works, which are examined in more detail in the article “Bernd and Hilla Becher: Photographic Art and Photographic Artists from a Successful Duo” .

Key methodology and artistic characteristics

A defining feature of their methodological approach is often the use of so-called "developments," , "typologies" of industrial architecture were created

The photographs were created with a clear, objective approach. In choosing their photographic technique, Bernd and Hilla Becher favored central perspectives without distortion , selected scenes without people, and relied on soft, overcast light. To accurately depict even the finest details, they used large-format cameras with a 13 × 18 cm format.

The image composition clearly highlights the surface structures and the arrangement of the buildings, which are generally positioned centrally.

The systematically documented, and in many places now damaged, remnants of industrial development are captured objectively and precisely in black-and-white photographs. Presented in typological juxtapositions, these images allow the viewer to experience their impact simultaneously.

In addition to the documentary and analytical dimensions of this long-term project, the work also influenced Minimalism and Conceptual Art from the early 1970s onward. This can be attributed to the deliberate placement of the buildings against a neutral gray sky, their decoupling from functional contexts, their monumental isolation, and the grid of the typological representation.

Their photographs reveal a lost iconography, immersing us in a world rarely found today. With their impressive body of work, Bernd and Hilla Becher left us a unique collection of industrial buildings, whose diversity is scarcely represented in modern architecture.

They coined the term "nomadic architecture" for industrial building design, which describes the ephemeral nature of these structures. The construction and demolition of these buildings are subject to the imperative interests of capital accumulation and profit maximization – a line of thought manifested in the quote:

Nomadic peoples leave no ruins behind

In this context, the Bechers saw themselves as archaeologists of industrial architecture; their work represented both a documentary search for traces and a cultural anthropology.

Classification of the artistic heritage

The photographic work of Hilla and Bernd Becher, which has played a central role in formal aesthetic discussions since the 1960s, is indispensable for modern art history in the field of photography. Their approach to photography is oriented towards the vocabulary of the visible and industrial architecture.

The Bechers established a new tradition of documentary photography through their sober and objective visual language, in contrast to highly staged works. In educational projects, students still explore the Bechers' fundamental compositional techniques, followed by practical exercises in the style of typological photography.

The photographic work of Bernd and Hilla Becher follows a concept rooted in the spirit of New Objectivity . From the perspective of fine art, it was soon categorized as conceptual art . Their unique approach, however, not only offers viewers insights into the architecture of bygone eras but also invites reflection on the influence of economic structures on architectural heritage.

Their works are therefore not only documentations, but also significant contributions to the reflection About us built environment.