Art Term

Dusseldorf School of Photography

The Dusseldorf School of Photography refers to a group of photographers who studied at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf in the mid 1970s under the influential photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher

Thomas Struth
Shinju-ku (Skyscrapers), Tokyo 1986 (1986)
Tate

© Thomas Struth

Known for their rigorous devotion to the 1920s German tradition of Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), the Bechers’ photographs were clear, black and white pictures of industrial archetypes (pitheads, water towers, coal bunkers).

Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Axel Hütte, Thomas Ruff and Thomas Struth modified the approach of their teachers by applying new technical possibilities and a personal and contemporary vision, while retaining the documentary method their tutors propounded.

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related terms and concepts

  • Photography

    Photography refers to the process or practice of creating a photograph – an image produced by the action of light on a light-sensitive material

  • Documentary photography

    Documentary photography is a style of photography that provides a straightforward and accurate representation of people, places, objects and events, and is often used in reportage

  • New Objectivity

    New Objectivity is the English translation of 'Neue Sachlichkeit', a German modern realist movement of the 1920s, described by one of its founders as ‘new realism bearing a socialist flavour’

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  • William Eggleston Morton, Mississippi 1969-70 dye transfer print 53 x 66.5 cm

    Cruel and tender

    Carter Ratcliff

    What is the place of documentary photography in art? This is the central question raised by Tate's first major exhibition devoted to photography, which includes an axis of the most highly acclaimed American and German image-makers of the past century. Carter Ratcliff looks at the evolution of a photographic practice that occupies the troublesome borderland between hard fact and enigmatic contingency.

  • Bernd and Hilla Becher Water Towers USA, 1988 black-and-white photographs each 40 x 30 cm

    The long look

    Michael Collins

    Bernd and Hilla Becher have spent their life together photographing the unintended beauty that can be found in industrial structures. Michael Collins profiles the winners of 2002’s prestigious erasmus prize for European culture.

  • The landscape in contemporary photography: From the sublime to the ridiculous

    Speakers are Thomas Struth, Penelope Umbrico, Massimo Vitali and Lauren Marsolier and Mishka Henner. The panel is chaired by William Ewing, Director of Curatorial Projects at Thames & Hudson.

  • The Photographic Comportment of Bernd and Hilla Becher

    Blake Stimson

    Bernd and Hilla Becher first began their project of systematically photographing industrial structures in the late 1950s. This paper, first given at a conference at Tate Modern, investigates the rhythmic continuity of the comportment or bearing toward the world that they have made into an epic form and that has gained broader influence in the work of their successful students.

  • MicroTate 34

    Edward Platt , Sasha Devas , Elain Harwood and Wilhelm Sasnal

    Edward Platt, Sasha Devas, Elain Harwood and Wilhelm Sasnal reflect on a work in the Tate collection

selected artists in the collection

selected artworks in the collection

dusseldorf school of photography at tate

  • Cruel Tender

    Cruel and Tender past exhibition at Tate Modern 5 June – 7 September 2003

  • Thomas Ruff Interior 1E 1983

    Thomas Ruff

    Press release announcing Thomas Ruff 1979 to the present past exhibition at Tate Liverpool 2003

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