Dusseldorf School of Photography

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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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.

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 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

Dusseldorf School of Photography

Photography

Documentary photography

New Objectivity

explore this term

Cruel and tender

The long look

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

The Photographic Comportment of Bernd and Hilla Becher

MicroTate 34

selected artists in the collection

Bernd Becher and Hilla Becher

Andreas Gursky

Candida Höfer

Thomas Ruff

selected artworks in the collection

Gas Tanks

Goetz Collection

Thebes, West