Gursky, Andreas

Andreas Gursky (born 15 January 1955) is a German artist and a former professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Germany. He is known for his large-scale colour photographs of architecture, landscapes and contemporary life—crowds, consumer goods and the infrastructures of global capitalism—combining methodical observation with digital construction to achieve an all-over, hyper-detailed image field. His works reach some of the highest prices in the art market. His photograph Rhein II was sold at Christie's for $4,338,500 on 8 November 2011. At the time it was the most expensive photograph ever sold at auction, and it remains the most expensive photograph by a living photographer. He was also involved in the establishment of the Deutsches Fotoinstitut (German Institute for Photography) in Düsseldorf, the first national institution for photography in Germany.