Winding Tower, 6 Views, Mosley Comon Colliery, Manchester, Great Britain

1968–72

Not on view

Returned to lender

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

Whenever possible, the Bechers tried to make in-the-round photographic sequences of each chosen subject for their ever-expanding archive. Unlike the winding towers seen nearby, here the upper part of the tower contains the engine that activates the cables and pulls up the coal cars. What is mostly invisible in these top-heavy buildings with their odd modernist ethos is the winding apparatus. Put together in a grid, they have a strangely fascinating effect, like the arrangements of exotic sea creatures by Ernst Haeckel seen in the wall case near the gallery entrance.

Artwork Details

Overview

Title: Winding Tower, 6 Views, Mosley Comon Colliery, Manchester, Great Britain
Artist: Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, active 1959–2007)
Date: 1968–72
Medium: Gelatin silver prints
Dimensions: 15 9/16 × 11 13/16 in. (39.5 × 30 cm), each
Frame: 22 × 18 × 1 in. (55.9 × 45.7 × 2.5 cm), each
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: Collection of Mark Kelman, New York
Curatorial Department: Photographs