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Water Towers

1963–80
Not on view
This grand, sixteen-part typology was acquired by The Met in 1980, its first acquisition of photographs by the Bechers. At the time, the artists’ aesthetic practice and seemingly prosaic, repetitive ethos were somewhat bewildering to both traditional photography collectors and public institutions. By the decade’s end, however, the Bechers had become among the first photographers to bridge the divide between photography and the rest of the visual arts. In 1988, when these water towers were first published, the English architecture critic Reyner Banham noted: "The presence of human beings may have been relentlessly excluded, but the handiwork of men is everywhere visible."

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Water Towers
  • Artist: Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, active 1959–2007)
  • Artist: Bernd Becher (German, 1931–2007)
  • Artist: Hilla Becher (German, 1934–2015)
  • Date: 1963–80
  • Medium: Gelatin silver prints
  • Dimensions: Image: 15 7/8 × 12 3/16 in. (40.4 × 31 cm), each
    Frame: 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm), each
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Warner Communications Inc. Purchase Fund, 1980
  • Object Number: 1980.1074a–p
  • Rights and Reproduction: © Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, represented by Max Becher
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

More Artwork

More Artwork
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[Maquette for Watertowers as reproduced in "Counterparts"], Bernd and Hilla Becher German, Gelatin silver print
[Maquette for Watertowers as reproduced in "Counterparts"]
Multiple artists/makers
1960s–80s, printed ca. 1982
Haupstrasse 36, Flammersbach, Bernd and Hilla Becher German, Gelatin silver print
Haupstrasse 36, Flammersbach
Multiple artists/makers
1960
Oberdielfer Strasse 14, Oberdielfen, Bernd and Hilla Becher German, Gelatin silver print
Oberdielfer Strasse 14, Oberdielfen
Multiple artists/makers
1960
Coal Tipples, Pennsylvania, United States, Bernd and Hilla Becher German, Gelatin silver prints
Coal Tipples, Pennsylvania, United States
Multiple artists/makers
1974–78
Comparative Juxtaposition, Nine Objects, Each With A Different Function, Bernd and Hilla Becher German, Gelatin silver prints
Comparative Juxtaposition, Nine Objects, Each With A Different Function
Bernd and Hilla Becher
1961–72

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