Self-portrait © Thomas Ruff

The conceptual photographer Thomas Ruff was born in 1958 in Zell am Harmersbach, Germany. He lives and works in Düsseldorf.

One of the most written-about conceptual artists active today, Ruff creates thoughtful, minimal portraiture and architectural images that put a contemporary spin on the work of German artists such as Bernd and Hilla Becher. (Ruff studied under Mr. Becher at the Staatliche Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf from 1977 to 1985.) His work frequently serves as a commentary on photographic distortions in the digital age, particularly the distortions that occur through the Internet and television. According to Ruff, “Most of the photos we come across today aren't really authentic anymore—they have the authenticity of a manipulated and prearranged reality.”

A gifted child with a talent for astronomy, Ruff began his photographic experiments at age sixteen through a course at a local institute. Two years later, he enrolled at the Düsseldorf Art Academy to devote himself fully to the subject. It was here that he met Bernd Becher and began developing his earliest series of portraits. While in school, Ruff also worked as a commercial architectural photographer, an experience that soon led him to create more artistic representations of seemingly mundane factories and apartment complexes.

Ruff began exhibiting in Germany in the early 1980s and has maintained a significant global presence ever since. In 2003, Tate Liverpool presented Thomas Ruff: Photographs 1979 to Present, and in 2005 he was featured in the Venice Biennale. Ruff is represented by the David Zwirner gallery in New York, where his work is often shown. In 2003 he received the Hans-Thoma Prize from the Hans-Thoma-Museum in Bernau, Germany.

jpeg ny02, 2004 © Thomas Ruff. Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, New York