Hilla Becher passed away earlier this month at the age of 81, leaving behind an influential legacy on the art and practice of architectural photography.
"Hilla Becher, one half of the collaborative duo that changed the pitch of architectural photography in the 1960s and ‘70s, has died at the age of 81," according to a post by Kriston Capps. Working with her husband Bernd Becher, the pair "changed the pitch of architectural photography in the 1960s and ‘70s," by establishing an objective style of photography.
Writes Capps:
"Today, the Bechers’ photographs only seem objective in a technical sense. Forty years on, their sturdy black-and-white photographs of crumbling monoliths summon romantic images of an industrial revolution forged in factories. Blast furnaces, water tanks, lime kilns, and grain silos comprise the “anonymous sculptures” that the Bechers would study their entire lives."
Their work can be found in the collections of "the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate, and many other prestigious museums," according to Capps, who also gathered a representative sample of the quality of the work to sample in the article. Capps also describes more of what made their work so innovative and striking and notes their influence on the New Topographics school of landscape architecture photography.
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