Höfer studied at the Kunstacademie Dusseldorf under the tutelage of renowned professors Bernd and Hila Becher in the 1970s and 1980s. She is a member of the first class of Becher students, which included Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky, and Axel Hütte. The work that emanated from the academy, considered the most influential German art school of the time, took the art-photography world by storm. Over the last thirty years, Candida Höfer has created meticulously composed images of the interiors of public and institutional spaces-spaces marked with the richness of human activity, yet devoid of human presence - which some have called an "architecture of absence." People seldom inhabit her work; yet her empty interiors are animated by the suggestion of a human presence, whether it is represented by rows of empty chairs, or letters lying unopened in mail slots. Recognized for her direct, almost austere style, Hofer brings a clear and unromantic eye to public spaces: museums, libraries, universities, and archives. Hofer's images become meditations on solitude and the nature of everyday space and emptiness, in conjunction with color, composition, and depth of field, becomes a formal element in the work. Hofer, like other Becher protégés, has developed a distinctive approach to her subjects, one "that allows those things being photographed to speak for themselves."

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