special edition with a signed photograph

Between 1977 and 2006, Schirmer/Mosel published an essential series of books with Bernd & Hilla Becher, which charted the decline of heavy industry in Western Europe and the United States. Each presents photographs from a single group of work or of a particular type of industrial structure: Fachwerkhäuser des Siegener Industriegebietes [Framework Houses of the Siegen Industrial Region] (1977); Förderturme Chevalements Mineheads (1985); Wassertürme [Water Towers] (1988); Hochöfen [Blast Furnaces] (1990); Pennsylvania Coal Mine Tipples (1991); Gasbehâlter [Gas Tanks] (1993); Fabrikhallen [Factory Halls] (1994); Förderturme [Mineheads] (1997); Kühltürme [Cooling Towers] (2005); and Getreidesilos [Grain Elevators] (2006). There were also titles in the series which differed slightly, including Zeche Hannibal [Hannibal Coal Mine] (2000), Industrielandschaften [Industrial Landscapes] (2002), and Typologien [Typologies] (2003). After Bernd died in 2007, three more titles were published: Bergwerke und Hütten (Coal Mines and Steel Mills, 2010), Zeche Hannover / Hannover Coal Mine (2010), and Steinwerke und Kalköfen (Stoneworks and Lime Kilns, 2013).

'In its totality, this series is a major monument to the German photobook,' writes Gerry Badger. 'It is as ambitious in its scope as August Sander's lifelong survey of German social types, 'Man in the Twentieth Century,' and it will undoubtedly come to be regarded as its equal.'

Special edition, number 86 of 100 copies with a signed photograph; 4to (289 x 269 mm, 11½ x 10¾ in); black & white photographs; cream endpapers, black linen-covered boards, titles to spine in grey, photo-illustrated dust jacket, white, text in black, numbered in pencil on a label mounted on the front free endpaper, gelatin silver photograph (240 x 182 mm, 9½ x 7¼ in) signed in pencil on verso, in a grey linen-covered board folder, together in the publisher's grey linen-covered board slipcase, fine; 256pp.

Parr/Badger, The Photobook: A History II, pp268-269.