1. How did they first meet?
They began collaborating together in 1959 after meeting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf school in 1957. Bernd originally studied painting and then typography, whereas Hilla had trained as a commercial photographer. After two years collaborating together, they married.
2. What inspired them to begin to record images of Germany’s industrial landscape?
The first area they went to was a spot in Germany was a area where thee was abandoned architecture that was going to get demolished so they wanted to preserve it by capturing it in photos, they were using a large format camera which means they weren’t able to take loads of images fast as they have to take one photo at a time meaning the whole process was slow and more carefully thought out.
3. How did the Bechers explain the concept of Typology?
Hilla Becher came up with it, she was looking at psychology and biology books, one of the people she looked at in biology was Karl Blossfeldt who published a famous book in 1928, they need to wait for the right light so a cloudy/white sky so they can clearly have the sky come out a clear white on the photo, they also photographed every drawing because they were conceptual photographers, they opposed creating images that used romanticism and wanted everything to look as real as possible, it was therefore the opposite of romanticism and was realism.
4. Which artists/ photographers inspired them to produce typology images?
The Bechers were inspired by:
- August Sander – He took photos of people in different jobs, which influenced the Bechers’ way of organizing their photos.
- Eugène Atget – He photographed buildings in Paris, which inspired the Bechers’ focus on architecture.
- Walker Evans – He took clear, straightforward photos of buildings, which influenced the Bechers’ style.
- Alfred Stieglitz – He treated photography as an art, which influenced how the Bechers approached their work.
- New Objectivity – A movement that focused on clear, direct photography, which the Bechers followed.
Basically, these photographers and artists influenced the Bechers’ organized and detailed way of photographing buildings.
5. What is the legacy of the Bechers and their work?
The Bechers influenced artists such as Ed Ruscha and sculptor Carl Andre, perhaps their most pronounced legacy was among their students, who include Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Thomas Ruff, and Thomas Struth— now known as the “Becher School.”
Here are some of there photos:
