Förderturm Zeche, Waltrop, Germany from the collection of Van Every/Smith Galleries at Davidson

Förderturm Zeche, Waltrop, Germany, 1982, printed 2009

Digital pigment print

12.5 x 49.25 in (31.75 x 125.1 cm)

Edition. 46/75

Inv: 2021.28.1

Location: Collection Storage Hanging Storage

Gift of John Andrew MacMahon '95

Bernd and Hilla Becher were conceptual artists and photographers who worked collaboratively. They are best known for their extensive series of photographic images, or typologies, of industrial buildings and structures and referred to these constructions as “anonymous sculptures.” They photographed winding towers, blast furnaces, industrial facades, gas tanks, cooling towers, mine heads, preparation plants, lime kilns, grain elevators, water towers, gravel plants, coal bunkers, and sometimes framework houses, once traditional German working-class homes. Their documentation of these structures took them from the Ruhr valley region in Germany to England, Wales, France, the United States, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The resulting austere, black and white photographs were organized into a grid or horizontal line showing multiple angles in an attempt to experience the subject in the round as opposed to a single vantage point.

Dr. Ann Fox’s “Disability in Literature & Art” class wrote and recorded image descriptions of some of the works in the Van Every/Smith collection. Here one student gives a description of the work through their perspective: Ella Dittmer ’26.

From Van Every/Smith Galleries at Davidson College

Shahzia Sikander

Portrait of the Artist, 2016

Etching on paper

27 x 21 in (68.58 x 53.34 cm)
Daniel Hudspeth

I Tried to Find You, But I Could Not, 2007

Acrylic and mixed media on canvas

36.875 x 37 x 2 in (93.66 x 93.98 x 5.08 cm)
Richard Swanson

Baby, South Carolina, c. 1981

Gelatin silver print

16 x 20 in (40.64 x 50.8 cm)
Adja Yunkers

Immobile Sun, 1981

Lithograph on paper

22.5 x 30 in (57.15 x 76.2 cm)
Andy Warhol

Unidentified Woman (White Glasses), 1980

Polaroid

4.25 x 3.375 in (10.8 x 8.57 cm)
Jeffrey Maron

Three Planes of Existence, 1978

Steel

59 x 18 x 18 in (149.86 x 45.72 x 45.72 cm)
Jim McCormick

Comstock #1: Disaster, 1975

Lithograph on paper

15.0625 x 12 in (38.26 x 30.48 cm)
Gene Merritt

Horse Power Versis Man

Ink on paper

11 x 8.5 in (27.94 x 21.59 cm)

View All Artworks

About the artist

Bernd & Hilla Becher

German

1931–2007

Bernhard "Bernd" Becher (German, Bernd, 1931–2007 & Hilla, née Wobeser, 1934 –2015), were German conceptual artists and photographers working as a collaborative duo. They are best known for their extensive series of photographic images, or typologies, of industrial buildings and structures, often organised in grids. As the founders of what has come to be known as the ‘Becher school’ or the ‘Düsseldorf School’ they influenced generations of documentary photographers and artists. They have been awarded the Erasmus Prize and the Hasselblad Award.

Additional Details

Additional Artworks

Portrait of the Artist, 2016

I Tried to Find You, But I Could Not, 2007

Baby, South Carolina, c. 1981

Immobile Sun, 1981

Unidentified Woman (White Glasses), 1980

Three Planes of Existence, 1978

Comstock #1: Disaster, 1975

Horse Power Versis Man

About the artist

Bernd & Hilla Becher