Candida Höfer was born in Eberswalde, Germany, in 1944. She studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 1973 to 1982, where she first explored film under Danish filmmaker Ole John before turning to photography under the guidance of Bernd and Hilla Becher. The Bechers’ conceptual rigor and typological approach to photography profoundly shaped Höfer’s practice, as well as that of her contemporaries in the renowned Düsseldorf School, including Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, Axel Hütte, and Thomas Ruff.Höfer is celebrated for her meticulously composed, large-scale color photographs of architectural interiors. Her work investigates how space—particularly cultural and institutional environments such as libraries, museums, theaters, and palaces—reflects social structures, collective memory, and aesthetic order. With a precise attention to symmetry, light, and architectural detail, Höfer reveals both the grandeur and the quiet psychology of built environments.Notably, her interiors are devoid of human presence, a decision that heightens the viewer’s awareness of the absent subjects who ordinarily animate these spaces. As Höfer has explained, “It became apparent to me that what people do in these spaces—and what these spaces do to them—is clearer when no one is present, just as an absent guest is often the subject of a conversation.”Höfer’s work has been featured in numerous major solo exhibitions, including at the Kunsthalle Basel and Kunsthalle Bern; Museum Folkwang, Essen; the Louvre, Paris; the North Carolina Museum of Art; Museo Amparo, Mexico; the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; and the Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland. Her photographs have also appeared in significant group exhibitions at institutions such as The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Power Plant, Toronto; Kunsthaus Bregenz; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao; and in Documenta XI in Kassel.In 2003, Höfer represented Germany at the Venice Biennale. She has received numerous honors for her contributions to contemporary photography, including the Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award from the Sony World Photography Awards (2018) and the Käthe Kollwitz Prize from the Academy of Arts, Berlin (2024).Her works are held in major public and private collections worldwide. Candida Höfer lives and works in Cologne, Germany.
