Hilla Becher, the German conceptual photographer known for her work with her husband Bernd, died on 10 October. She was 81.
The Bechers were best known for their black-and-white photographs of industrial architecture. The pictures were often presented in groups according to themes (water towers, gas tanks, grain elevators, etc) so as to emphasise formal similarities and differences. In 1990, they were awarded the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the Venice Biennale.
In 1957, when Hilla Wobeser met Bernd Becher at the Staatliche Kunstakademie, Düsseldorf, they were both studying painting, but from 1959 they began to take photographs documenting German industrial architecture. Their first exhibition took place in Siegen in 1963 and the couple were married in 1967. Images of factories, water towers, storage silos and warehouses in Germany and later throughout the world appeared repeatedly in their work which became known internationally after it appeared at Documenta 5 in 1972. Bernd later taught at the Düsseldorf Art Academy from 1976 and 1996, where his students included Andreas Gursky and Candida Höfer. He died in 2007.
After her husband’s death, Hilla continued the documenting project on her own in recent years, adding a few cement works. Their work is included in numerous public collections, including the Guggenheim Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, both in New York.