Thomas Ruff
Nationality: German
Born: 1958, Zell am Harmersbach, Germany

Thomas Ruff was born in Zell am Harmersbach, Germany, in 1958. He studied at Staatliche Kunstakademie, Dusseldorf under Bernd Becher from 1977 to 1985. His work has been featured in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, among others. He has participated in international exhibitions such as the Sao Paulo Bienal in 2002. He lives and works in Dusseldorf, Germany.

Ruff scrutinizes a range of photographic genres—architectural photography, newspaper images, portraiture, astronomy, pornography and nighttime imaging used by the military. He is fascinated with the processes of photography and image manipulation. Like those of many of his contemporaries, his photographs are typified by a thoughtful approach to the "non-truth" of the medium. Ruff first became known for a series of large-scale portraits that had the deadpan format of passport photographs. His portraits and architectural photographs use similar compositional devices: a balanced, frontal pictoral structure, and an emphasis on the building or person being photographed to the exclusion of surrounding details.

Ruff explores a wide range of genres—portrait, landscape, found image, cityscape, etc. His work is rooted in a relentless interrogation of photography and its subjects.

Source: Acquisitions Justification