  About the Artwork
  
  
  German couple Bernd and Hilla Becher, who worked collaboratively beginning in 1959, were fascinated by industrial forms, traveling to sites throughout Europe and North America to photograph them. They sought similar structures in different cities, obtained permission to photograph them, and then waited for overcast skies so their subjects appeared against a neutral backdrop that stripped away the surroundings to reveal their austere forms. The photographers took each image from the same vantage point, ensuring the uniformity of their imagery, and then arranged the photographs of similar subjects in grids. The spheres pictured here are massive storage containers that hold various types of gases.
  
  
  Title
  Gasbehalter Kugel (Spherical Gas Tanks)
  
  
  Artwork Date
  2013
  
  
  
  
  Makers
  
  
  Bernd (Bernhard) Becher  (Artist)
  German,1931-2007
  Hilla Becher  (Artist)
  German, 1934-2015
  
  
  
  Medium
  Gelatin silver prints
  
  
  Dimensions
  Block: 68 1/8 × 56 3/4 inches (173 × 144.1 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Photographs
  
  
  Department
  Prints, Drawings &amp; Photographs
  
  
  Credit
  Museum Purchase, W. Hawkins Ferry Fund
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  2013.70
  
  
  Copyright
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