Germany, 1958. Lives in Düsseldorf

Ruff studied photography at the famed Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf with Bernd and Hilla Becher and graduated in 1985. He also taught there from 2000 to 2005. From early on in his career, Thomas Ruff took a conceptual approach to photography, and revisited classical formats, only to open new perspectives: his photography suggests the possibilities of his chosen medium, as he might use digital manipulation for one subject and antiquated darkroom techniques for another. Ruff works in series, creating defined bodies of work whose subjects include empty domestic interiors, appropriated interplanetary images captured by NASA, abstractions of modernist architecture, three-dimensional computer-generated Pop imagery, and obscured pornography.