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Hilla Becher
Hilla Becher (née Wobeser; 2 September 1934 – 10 October 2015) was a German conceptual photographer. Becher was well known for her industrial photographs, or typologies, with longtime collaborator and husband, Bernd Becher. Her career spanned more than 50 years and included photographs from the United States, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Italy.
Becher, alongside her husband, received the Erasmus Prize and the Hasselblad Award. The Bechers founded the Düsseldorf School of Photography in the mid-1970s.
In 2015, she died from a stroke at age 81, in Düsseldorf.
Becher was born in Potsdam, East Germany. Her mother attended Lette-Haus, a photography school for women, and occasionally worked in a studio, retouching photographs. Her father was a high school language teacher, later drafted to World War II.
Hilla Becher was exposed to photography early in life. Becher began photographing at thirteen years old with a 9×12 cm plate-camera. Becher photographed her teachers in high school. She printed and sold photographs at postcard size for the teachers. She was expelled from high school and became an intern for Walter Eichgrun, a working studio and commissioned photographer, in 1951, while studying photography at a vocational school and finishing her high school degree in Berlin. She spent three years working on commission with Eichgrun and did various solo assignments. In 1954, she and her mother moved to West Germany, where she worked as a freelance photographer in Hamburg. In 1957, she was offered a job in Düsseldorf, Germany as an advertising photographer and around 1958, she enrolled into the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Walter Breker studying graphic design and printing techniques. She was "the first student to be admitted to the class on the basis of a portfolio consisting solely of photographs." She was also the lead instructor in the darkroom after she completed her apprenticeship with Walter Breker.
In 1957, Hilla Wobeser met Bernhard Becher, known as Bernd at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where the two studied. They began a collaboration photographing the Siegerland region where Bernd was raised, and two years later, the couple got married in 1961. The Bechers traveled in a Volkswagen photographing industrial sites all over Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France, then eventually, Britain and the US.
In an interview with Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, Hilla Becher claimed that her husband disliked photography at the beginning of the career. Originally a sketch artist, Bernd believed that photography was more a "means to an end" to further detail in his sketches rather than its own artistic medium. In the same interview, Hilla maintained that though the couple worked as a team, Bernd was the driving force because he was more of a perfectionist than she was.
Bernd died at 75 years old on 22 June 2007 from complications during heart surgery. By that time, their work had achieved worldwide acknowledgements, fascinating other photographers such as Stephen Shore. Their wide influence was also due to their roles as professors at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where some of their students included Candida Höfer, Andreas Gursky, and Thomas Ruff.
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Hilla Becher
Hilla Becher (née Wobeser; 2 September 1934 – 10 October 2015) was a German conceptual photographer. Becher was well known for her industrial photographs, or typologies, with longtime collaborator and husband, Bernd Becher. Her career spanned more than 50 years and included photographs from the United States, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Italy.
Becher, alongside her husband, received the Erasmus Prize and the Hasselblad Award. The Bechers founded the Düsseldorf School of Photography in the mid-1970s.
In 2015, she died from a stroke at age 81, in Düsseldorf.
Becher was born in Potsdam, East Germany. Her mother attended Lette-Haus, a photography school for women, and occasionally worked in a studio, retouching photographs. Her father was a high school language teacher, later drafted to World War II.
Hilla Becher was exposed to photography early in life. Becher began photographing at thirteen years old with a 9×12 cm plate-camera. Becher photographed her teachers in high school. She printed and sold photographs at postcard size for the teachers. She was expelled from high school and became an intern for Walter Eichgrun, a working studio and commissioned photographer, in 1951, while studying photography at a vocational school and finishing her high school degree in Berlin. She spent three years working on commission with Eichgrun and did various solo assignments. In 1954, she and her mother moved to West Germany, where she worked as a freelance photographer in Hamburg. In 1957, she was offered a job in Düsseldorf, Germany as an advertising photographer and around 1958, she enrolled into the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Walter Breker studying graphic design and printing techniques. She was "the first student to be admitted to the class on the basis of a portfolio consisting solely of photographs." She was also the lead instructor in the darkroom after she completed her apprenticeship with Walter Breker.
In 1957, Hilla Wobeser met Bernhard Becher, known as Bernd at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where the two studied. They began a collaboration photographing the Siegerland region where Bernd was raised, and two years later, the couple got married in 1961. The Bechers traveled in a Volkswagen photographing industrial sites all over Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France, then eventually, Britain and the US.
In an interview with Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, Hilla Becher claimed that her husband disliked photography at the beginning of the career. Originally a sketch artist, Bernd believed that photography was more a "means to an end" to further detail in his sketches rather than its own artistic medium. In the same interview, Hilla maintained that though the couple worked as a team, Bernd was the driving force because he was more of a perfectionist than she was.
Bernd died at 75 years old on 22 June 2007 from complications during heart surgery. By that time, their work had achieved worldwide acknowledgements, fascinating other photographers such as Stephen Shore. Their wide influence was also due to their roles as professors at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where some of their students included Candida Höfer, Andreas Gursky, and Thomas Ruff.
