Winding Tower, Glenrhondda Colliery, Treherbert, South Wales, Great Britain

1966

Not on view

Returned to lender

This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.

The Bechers’ iconic photographs of winding towers (also known as mineheads) are among their works most coveted by public institutions and private collectors alike. For some, the appeal is the form’s expressive beauty and clear function; for others, it is the typographic quality of the structures and the dignified way the towers are fixed to the ground upon which they sit and do their work. The Bechers made this photograph in South Wales on a travel grant sponsored by the British Council to provide a visual anthology of Welsh coal mining at a time when the National Coal Board was shutting down collieries across the United Kingdom. Glenrhondda opened in 1911 and closed in 1966, around the time they made this picture.

Artwork Details

Overview

Provenance

Title: Winding Tower, Glenrhondda Colliery, Treherbert, South Wales, Great Britain
Artist: Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, active 1959–2007)
Date: 1966
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions: 22 3/4 × 17 15/16 in. (57.8 × 45.5 cm)
Frame: 35 7/8 × 29 5/8 × 1 1/8 in. (91.2 × 75.2 × 2.8 cm)
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher, represented by Max Becher, courtesy Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur—Bernd & Hilla Becher Archive, Cologne.
Curatorial Department: Photographs