Bernhard "Bernd" Becher, and Hilla Becher, née Wobeser, were German conceptual artists and photographers working as a collaborative duo. They are best known for their extensive series of photographic images, or typologies, of industrial buildings and structures, often organised in grids. As the founders of what has come to be known as the 'Becher school' or the Düsseldorf School of Photography, they influenced generations of documentary photographers and artists in Germany and abroad. They were awarded the Erasmus Prize and the Hasselblad Award.

The Kunstakademie Düsseldorf is the academy of fine arts of the state of North Rhine Westphalia at the city of Düsseldorf, Germany. Notable artists who studied or taught at the academy include Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Magdalena Jetelová, Gotthard Graubner, Nam June Paik, Nan Hoover, Katharina Fritsch, Tony Cragg, Ruth Rogers-Altmann, Sigmar Polke, Anselm Kiefer, Rosemarie Trockel, Thomas Schütte, Katharina Grosse and photographers Thomas Ruff, Thomas Demand, Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky and Candida Höfer. In the stairway of its main entrance are engraved the Words: "Für unsere Studenten nur das Beste".