Thomas Ruff

Thomas Ruff's photography exemplifies the diverse potential of his chosen medium, employing digital manipulation for one subject while embracing antiquated darkroom techniques for another.

Biography of Thomas Ruff

Born in 1958 in Zell am Harmersbach, Germany, Thomas Ruff studied at the Staatliche Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf from 1977 to 1985. In the late 1980s, he gained international recognition as part of the Düsseldorf School, a group of young photographers mentored by Bernd and Hilla Becher. This collective was known for its innovative approach to photography, exploring its evolving technological capabilities.

Ruff notably diverged from his mentors' style, developing his unique conceptual photography methods. These approaches encompassed the use of color, purposeful manipulation of source imagery (initially through manual retouching techniques and later through digital means), and scaling photographic prints to monumental proportions.

In 2018, Ruff was part of the Photography Spotlight exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, celebrating the opening of the museum's Photography Centre. For this occasion, Ruff created a new body of work titled "Tripe" as a special commission.

In 2020–2021, K20 - Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, featured a solo exhibition of Ruff's work. In 2021, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, curated a significant solo exhibition titled "Thomas Ruff: after.images – Works 1989–2020," showcasing works from "tableaux chinois" and fifteen other series dating back to 1989.

In 2022, "Thomas Ruff: Méta-Photographie" was displayed at Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Étienne Métropole (MAMC), France. Additionally, in 2022, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany, presented a two-person exhibition featuring works by Ruff and James Welling.

Ruff's artwork is held in museum collections worldwide, including the Art Institute of Chicago; Dallas Museum of Art; Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg, Austria; Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart, 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.

Thomas Ruff's Art Style

Ruff adopts a series-based approach, crafting distinct bodies of work encompassing various subjects, including vacant domestic interiors, appropriated interplanetary images from NASA, abstract interpretations of modernist architecture, three-dimensional computer-generated Pop art, and obscured depictions of pornography.

The artist's portraiture series from the early 1980s, which garnered his initial critical acclaim, featured groupings of large three-quarter portraits akin to passport photos, but their enlarged scale offered exceptional clarity. Although many of his photographic series appear to invite sociocultural interpretations, Ruff consistently distances himself from such readings. Instead, he prioritizes aesthetics and process, constructing an eclectic body of work that defies categorization by genre, method, or theme but is characterized by striking imagery, relative conceptual consistency, seriality of subject, and a skillful subversion of the printed image.