Deichmanske Bibliothek Oslo I II II, 2000

Höfer was born in Eberswalde but grew up in Cologne. From 1963 to 1964, she worked as a volunteer assistant at the renowned Schmölz-Huth photo studio in Cologne, and then studied fine art photography with Arno Jansen at the Kölner Werkschulen until 1968. After a brief period working as a photographer in Hamburg and as a staff member at Werner Bokelberg’s photography studio, Höfer continued her studies in 1973 with Ole John in the film program at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts. Beginning in 1976, she studied under Bernd Becher and graduated in 1982. From 1997 to 2000, she held a professorship in photography at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design. She is a member of the Freie Akademie der Künste in Hamburg.

Candida Höfer is one of the most internationally renowned German photographers and part of a group of Becher students who belong to the international photographic avant-garde, taking a conceptual approach to their work.

Early in her artistic career, Höfer photographed only people, but she eventually became best known for her images of interiors, a subject she began exploring as early as the 1980s. She created extensive series of public spaces such as libraries, lecture halls, concert halls and sports arenas, cafés, museums, as well as zoos and other interiors. A defining feature of her images is the absence of people. These spaces appear, so to speak, as if uninhabited, for the normally well-lit rooms reveal precisely their specific function and what characterizes them as social arenas. The spaces Höfer documents in her color photographs take on a wholly distinctive presence—beyond the room’s functional purpose—and an air of timelessness. Unlike her teachers Bernd and Hilla Becher—and also in contrast to Gursky and Struth—she did not initially use a large-format camera, but has since switched to one.