Around 1960, the world of industry was still purely a man's world. Traditions were passed down from man to man. This work depicts a busy scene in a bright industrial facility. In the foreground, we can see two men, drawn from the waist up. They are so close together that they are clearly not really standing face-to-face – they are also looking past each other.

Despite the double portrait, the young man and the old man are physically far apart. Their connection and the context of their intergenerational experience is the workshop behind them. Interestingly, a series of contemporary black-and-white photographs from the industrial region of North Rhine-Westphalia by Erich and Rudi Angenendt and Albert Renger-Patzsch employ similar motifs.