Thomas Ruff facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Thomas Ruff
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Thomas Ruff
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| Born | 10 February 1958 Zell am Harmersbach, West Germany
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| Education | Kunstakademie Düsseldorf |
| Known for | Photography |
| Movement | Düsseldorf School of Photography |
Thomas Ruff (born 10 February 1958) is a famous German photographer. He lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany. Many people call him a "master" at changing and creating new images.
Thomas Ruff shares a studio in Düsseldorf with other German photographers. These include Laurenz Berges, Andreas Gursky, and Axel Hütte. Their studio used to be an electricity station. It even has a gallery in the basement.
Contents
Growing Up and Learning Photography
Thomas Ruff was born in 1958 in a place called Zell am Harmersbach. This town is in the Black Forest area of Germany. He was one of six children. When he was young, he was very interested in Aldous Huxley's ideas. These ideas later inspired his photographs.
In 1974, Ruff got his first camera. He took an evening class to learn basic photography. Then, he started taking pictures like those he saw in amateur magazines.
While studying in Düsseldorf, Ruff learned a special way of taking photos. He focused on creating a series of pictures that followed a certain idea. At first, he photographed landscapes. But as a student, he started taking pictures of German living rooms. These rooms showed styles from the 1950s to the 1970s. After that, he photographed buildings and portraits of his friends.
From 1977 to 1985, Ruff studied photography. He learned from Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Other famous photographers like Andreas Gursky and Thomas Struth were also his classmates. In 1982, he spent six months studying in Paris. Later, in 1993, he was a scholar in Rome.
Thomas Ruff's Photography Work
Ruff once said that his teacher, Bernd Becher, showed him photos by American photographers. These included Stephen Shore and Joel Meyerowitz. Thomas Ruff is often compared to other well-known European photographers. These include Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky, and Rineke Dijkstra. From 2000 to 2005, Ruff taught photography at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.
Capturing Faces: The Portraits Series
Between 1981 and 1985, Ruff took 60 half-body portraits in his studio. He took them all in the same way. They looked like passport photos. The person's head was at the top of the picture. The lighting was even. The people were between 25 and 35 years old. He used a special camera that prevented blurry pictures.
His first portraits were small and black-and-white. But soon, Ruff started using color. He used plain backgrounds in different colors. The person being photographed could choose their favorite color for the background. These Portraits show people, often Ruff's classmates. They usually have no expression. They are either facing forward or sideways.
In 1986, Ruff started making very large prints. Some of his photos were as big as seven by five feet. By 1987, he mostly used a full-front view. He made the finished pictures huge. An art critic named Charles Hagen said these large photos looked like "gigantic banners."
Ruff later chose a light, plain background for his portraits from 1986 to 1991. He felt the colors were too strong before. Ruff also mentioned that his portraits were connected to how police watched people in Germany in the 1970s.
In 1992, Ruff found a machine used by German police. It could combine parts of different faces to make one new face. Ruff first tried to rebuild real faces. But he found it more interesting to create new, artificial faces. These faces often mixed features of men and women. They looked real, but didn't actually exist. This led to his Anderes Porträt (Other Portrait) series from 1994 to 1995.
Buildings: The Häuser Series
The Häuser (Houses) series was made between 1987 and 1991. These pictures of buildings are also part of a series. Ruff digitally changed them to remove small details. This made the images look like examples of a certain type of building. Ruff said these buildings showed the way people lived and the economy in West Germany for 30 years.
Architects Herzog & de Meuron noticed Ruff's building photos. They asked him to show his work at an architecture event in Venice in 1991.
In 1999, Ruff made another series of photos. These were digitally changed pictures of modern buildings by Mies van der Rohe. This series, called l.m.v.d.r., started when Ruff was asked to photograph buildings in Krefeld, Germany. He also photographed the Barcelona Pavilion and the Villa Tugendhat.
Stars, Night, and Newspaper Photos
In 1989, Ruff started his Sterne (Stars) series. These pictures of the night sky were not taken by Ruff himself. He used old photos from an observatory in Chile. These star photos were taken with a special telescope. They included exact times and locations. Ruff chose small parts of these photos and made them very large.
From 1992 to 1995, during the first Gulf War, Ruff created his Nacht (Night) series. These were night images of buildings and outdoor areas. He used the same night vision technology that was used in the war.
From 1994 to 1996, he made Stereoscopy images. Another series in the 1990s, Zeitungsfotos, showed newspaper clippings. He made them very large, but without their original captions.
Science-Inspired Art: Zycles, Cassini, and ma.r.s.
Ruff's series Zycles and Cassini use ideas from science. Zycles are based on 3D computer drawings of mathematical curves. Ruff was inspired by old drawings in books about electricity. He used a 3D computer program to give these flat drawings a sense of depth. The result is large prints on canvas with colorful lines and swirls.
The Cassini works use photos of Saturn taken by NASA. Ruff changed these black and white pictures by adding bright colors. In the ma.r.s. series, he used black and white images of Mars from the NASA website. He added bright colors and changed the view digitally. He also tried making 3D images for the first time.
Art Without a Camera: Photograms
With Photograms, Ruff uses a technique called a photogram. This is a way to make pictures without a camera. Artists like Man Ray used this method long ago. The photogram series shows abstract shapes, lines, and swirls. They look like random patterns with different levels of light. Ruff created these shapes and light effects using a special computer program. It was like building a virtual darkroom.
Newspaper Art: press++
The press++ series was first shown in 2017. These works are based on old photos from American newspapers and magazines. Ruff found these photos on eBay. To make these artworks, Ruff scans both the front and back of each photo. He then combines them digitally. He includes the original image, any crops, touch-ups, date stamps, and even smudges.
After working with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron many times, they designed a studio building for Ruff and Andreas Gursky in Düsseldorf.
Exploring Perception: d.o.pe
The d.o.pe series gets its name from a book by Aldous Huxley. The book talks about how our minds perceive things. For this series, Ruff prints fractal patterns onto industrial carpets. He creates these patterns with special software. This series explores how we see things and how digital images can look both natural and artificial. The works also connect to artists like Hieronymus Bosch and Ruff's own childhood in the Black Forest.
Film About Thomas Ruff
- – This is a 50-minute movie about Thomas Ruff. It is in German with English subtitles.
Where You Can See His Work
Thomas Ruff's art is kept in these public collections:
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City: 5 prints (as of December 2020)
- Tate, UK: 5 prints (as of December 2020)
See also
In Spanish: Thomas Ruff para niños
