The Dusseldorf School of Photography

The Düsseldorf School of Photography presents the first comprehensive assessment of the German photographic movement commonly known as the Düsseldorf School of Photography. This impeccable survey is filled with superb reproductions of the best-known photographs by three generations of key Düsseldorf artists: Bernd and Hilla Becher, Laurenz Berges, Elger Esser, Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Axel Hütte, Simone Nieweg, Thomas Ruff, Jörg Sasse, Thomas Struth, and Petra Wunderlich. With a scholarly text, extensive artist bios, and a plate section dedicated to each of these artists, The Düsseldorf School of Photography presents over 160 images in a spectacular overview from the early 1970s to today. The Düsseldorf School of Photography has become synonymous with artistic excellence and innovation. It began in the mid 1970s at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under the instruction of the influential photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher, known for their comparative grids of mundane industrial buildings captured with an objective and clinical eye. This school has not only birthed some of today's most important and successful photographers, but has also had a fundamental and lasting influence on the history of the medium.

Stefan Gronert (essay) is a curator of the graphics collection at the Kunstmuseum in Bonn and teaches art history at the University of Bonn, specializing in photography. His essays have appeared in books such as Gerhard Richter: Portraits (2006), Manuel Franke: Brown Dwarf (2002), and Thomas Struth: Strassen (1995), among others. Gronert has served as editor for numerous publications about modern and contemporary art.

Essay by Stefan Gronert
Designed by Inger-Lise McMillan
Hardcover
12 x 10 1/2 inches
320 pages
978-1-59711-136-2
118 four-color and 44 black-and-white images
Spring 2010