Thomas Ruff

b. 1958

German artist Thomas Ruff was born in Zell am Harmersbach, West Germany, and attended the Staatliche Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf from 1977 to 1985. He currently lives and works in Düsseldorf.

Ruff rose to fame in the late 1980s as a member of the Düsseldorf School, a group of young photographers who studied under Bernd and Hilla Becher, best known for their experimental approach to the medium and its evolving technological capabilities. Ruff utilises various techniques in his work, from digital manipulation to traditional darkroom methods and manipulating appropriated images. His photography varies drastically, but consistently explores how historical and media-driven changes in the medium affect our understanding of the relationship between image and reality.

Ruff has exhibited internationally and his works are housed in the public collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; Dallas Museum of Art; Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg, Austria; Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; K20 – Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; National Museum of Photography, Copenhagen; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent.

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