Candida Höfer
Candida Höfer, born in Eberswalde in 1944, lives and works in Cologne. For five decades, Candida Höfer has been documenting deserted interiors of cultural sites and making their silent presence and lived history visible. Without interfering with the scenery, she captures moments of emptiness and creates a visual archive of cultural spaces. As a master student of Bernd and Hilla Becher, Höfer is one of the most important representatives of the Düsseldorf School of Photography. Her works, represented in important collections such as the Tate Collection, sharpen the eye for architectural forms of expression and their cultural significance.
Candida Höfer Editions
Elbphilharmonie Hamburg Herzog & de Meuron Hamburg VIII 2016
2020
Kunsthistorisches Institut Bonn I
2020
Shelves
2009
Barock Brasilien 2005
2006
Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg B
2001/2003
Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg A
2000/2002
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
2000/2002
Palast Rom 1998
1999
Candida Höfer
Elbphilharmonie Hamburg Herzog & de Meuron Hamburg VIII 2016
2020
C-Print, mounted on Alu-Dibond, 58 x 56.5 cm. Edition of 100, signed and numbered.
The work comes with the artist's catalogue raisonné Candida Höfer – Editions 1987-2020 in a bespoke box.
In this edition, Candida Höfer documents the spectacular concert hall in Hamburg even before its official opening. The photographer, known for her matter-of-fact and deserted interiors, captures the 82-metre-long escalator – the longest in Europe – from a central perspective. Her reduced visual language makes the bright white walls and ceilings appear almost dematerialized and creates an atmosphere of transcendence.
EUR 1,600
Candida Höfer
Kunsthistorisches Institut Bonn I
2020
Pigment print, 46 x 60 cm (passe-partout), 30 x 45 cm (image). Edition of 50, signed and numbered.
The work comes with the artist's eponymous book in a bespoke box.
In this edition, Candida Höfer presents a precisely composed spatial scene, in which radiator, display case, baseboard, and floor function as equally weighted visual elements. As early as 1992, Höfer captured this location in a series of black-and-white photographs; in 2020, she returned to take a new image in color. Without flash, tripod, or interchangeable lenses, she created images that she herself describes as a “construct with references to reality” – a fitting characterization of her precise, people-free architectural photography.
EUR 1,200
Candida Höfer
Shelves
2009
From Forty Are Better Than One
5-part leporello, digital pigment print (Ditone) on 230 g card stock, 25 x 160 cm (9¾ x 63 in). Edition: 75, signed and numbered.
For this edition, published on the occasion of Edition Schellmann’s 40th anniversary, Candida Höfer selected a photograph she had taken of the Biblioteca Marucelliana in Florence, Italy. Captured in her signature style – marked by precision, symmetry, and an absence of human presence – the image presents the vast, light-filled interior of this historic library as a quiet monument to knowledge and order.
EUR 2,500
Candida Höfer
Barock Brasilien 2005
2006
Set of 3 Lambda prints mounted on aluminum, 62 x 73.5 cm (24½ x 29 in), each signed and numbered on verso, edition of 40.
This edition series comprises three photographs depicting the richly ornamented altars of three different Baroque churches in Brazil, captured by Candida Höfer in her signature style – formal, restrained, and quietly immersive. Despite their opulence, the interiors are rendered with a sense of stillness and structure that invites close contemplation, characteristic of Höfer’s ongoing engagement with cultural spaces and architectural grandeur.
Candida Höfer
Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg B
2001/2003
Published for the 50th Venice Biennale
Photograph, 40 x 40 cm, in mat 55 x 54 cm (21¾ x 21¼ in). Edition of 45, signed and numbered on label on mat.
For this edition, Candida Höfer selected a photograph of the distinctive reading room at Hamburg’s university library. In her signature style, Höfer captures the quiet order of this public interior: the rhythmic ceiling grid, the symmetry of tables and chairs, and the subdued palette of the architecture. The absence of people turns the space into a study of structure and function, transforming a site of everyday knowledge into a monument of institutional memory.
EUR 3,000
Candida Höfer
Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg A
2000/2002
From Double Exposure
Two C-Prints, mounted on Forex, 61 x 61 cm (24 x 24 in) each. Edition of 45, signed and numbered each.
Candida Höfer’s edition Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg A captures the symmetrical elegance of the library’s interior. Taken from slightly different vantage points, the two photographs reveal the quiet rigor of the neoclassical architecture, while reinforcing Höfer’s preoccupation with symmetry, space, and repetition. White arched arcades and a central skylight lend the space a bright, almost otherworldly atmosphere, while the parallel arrangement of shelves evokes the spirit of focused academic study. The varying light conditions across the three floors not only create a sense of mystery but also transform the composition into a subtle color study.
Candida Höfer
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
2000/2002
Published for Documenta 11
C-print, mounted on Forex, 70 x 70 cm (27½ x 27½ in), edition of 50, signed and numbered.
This edition is part of Candida Höfer’s series of photographs documenting the twelve casts of Auguste Rodin’s bronze sculpture The Burghers of Calais (1884-95) in their installations in various international public collections. This particular work captures the bronze figures inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
EUR 8,000
Candida Höfer
Palast Rom 1998
1999
C-print, 40 x 51 cm (16 x 20 in), in mat 54 x 67.5 cm (21 x 26½ in). Edition of 99, signed and numbered (out of 100).
In this atmospheric photograph of a Roman palazzo interior, Candida Höfer captures a space suspended between grandeur and stillness. The draped walls, ornate chairs, and the statue are bathed in soft, muted light, evoking a sense of faded opulence. As in much of Höfer’s work, the absence of human presence intensifies the viewer’s awareness of architectural memory and cultural layering. The image speaks to both the theatricality of historic space and the quiet dignity of places that have outlived their original function.
EUR 1,800
