Andreas Gursky studied visual communication at the Folkwang Universit�t der K�nste in Essen, Germany, from 1977 to 1980. He then continued his studies at the Kunstakademie D�sseldorf, where he was a master-class student of Bernd and Hilla Becher. Emerging in the 1990s, Gursky established himself as an important figure in contemporary German art, going on to be the subject of retro-spectives at the Kunsthalle D�sseldorf in 1998 and in 2001 at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Gursky?s works are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Tate Modern in London. He lives and works in D�sseldorf.