first experiences in photography came about dur-
ing his teenage years. In 1974, Ruff received his
first camera, a small format Nikon, and he even-
tually took night classes in photography. In 1977,
he entered the renowned Kunstakademie in Du ̈ssel-
dorf for an apprenticeship under Bernd Becher.
It was during these years that Thomas Ruff first
began the work that would later evolve into a style
of photography that predominated among con-
temporary German photographers, most notably
Bernd and Hilla Becher, and their students Andreas
Gursky, Candida Ho ̈fer, and Thomas Struth. Often
these photographs, or typologies, were considered
cold and distant, lacking in any emotional content.
Ruff’s first series of photographs,Interiors, com-
pleted while still in school, depicted the inner spaces
of buildings in and around his hometown. These
photographs came about, in part, from his expe-
riences working with a commercial photographer
producing brochures for the building industry.
What were of particular interest to Ruff were not
the spaces themselves, but the sculptural objects he
found within them, such as a chair or dresser. It was
also during this time at the Kunstakademie that he
began his series entitled Portraits. In the early
1980’s, Ruff began photographing other students
at the school and friends. The students tended to
be of the same race, class, and age, providing a very
homogenous, narrow view, which Ruff enjoyed, for
the object was to make simple compositions in large
collections. The photographs were straightforward
portraits not unlike ID photos or mug shots. The
sitters were asked to wear their own clothing and
allowed to select from a number of brightly colored
backgrounds. The sitters’ faces are devoid of any
expression, the portraits revealing nothing. Occa-
sionally, a subject would be shown in profile or
three-quarters view, but the majority were full-face
shots. The photographs were printed out either as
three times smaller or three times larger in scale
than reality.
By the late 1980s, Thomas Ruff refined his por-
traits even further by eliminating the colored back-
drops, removing emotional connotations to any
particular color. As well, Ruff felt the color in his
subjects faces was sufficient. The pose became stan-
dardized, with all models facing forward, gazing
deadpan into the camera. The print size also chan-
ged to roughly six feet tall, equivalent to or taller
than the height of most of its viewers as Ruff strove
to achieve his ideal of a truly objective photograph
which represented surfaces, not stories.
Meanwhile, Thomas Ruff was earning praise and
a number of honors for his work. In 1982, he won
the Kunstakademie’s Paris stipend and in 1985 the
Ju ̈rgen Ponto Foundation Prize. It was also during
this time that Ruff shared a studio with fellow for-
mer Kunstakademie students Andreas Gursky and
Axel Hu ̈tte. In 1987, Ruff began employing digital
technology to retouch his photographs, further
enforcing his idea of the photograph as a paradigm
against the authenticity of an image. At first, Tho-
mas Ruff would simply use this technology to create
the image he envisioned in his head. In hisPortraits
series, for example, he gave all his sitters blue eyes to
further dissolve any differences between them. In
his next series,Houses, Ruff digitally removed trees
or other objects that interfered with the architecture
or composition.
WhileRuffismostcloselyassociatedwithpor-
traits, he has made attempts at ‘‘objective photo-
graphy’’ through other subjects. His seriesStars
consisted of large photographs printed from nega-
tives borrowed from the European Southern Ob-
servatory. In these photographs, white specks of
varying sizes and configurations float in a deep
black space like a visual road map. TheNightseries
was another investigation of an objective aesthetic
position that required his researching the capabilities
of equipment new to him—night vision devices used
by the military. Ruff did not digitally retouch these
photographs, as he wanted the sickly green colorcast
characteristic of night vision technology to indicate
the process. Ruff’sNewspaper Photosseries consisted
of enlargements of various images he had collected
for years from local newspapers. For Ruff, the appeal
was not the story behind the image, but rather the
composition and the process. These photographs,
once taken from their original context, became a
manipulation by Ruff of the original.
After nearly a decade, Thomas Ruff returned to
his work with portraiture in his mid-1990’s series
Other Portraits. Instead of using original images, he
recycled old negatives from early portraits. Inspired
by a police system used in Munich to create the
likeness of suspects, Ruff fused two portraits to-
gether to create a new photograph and a likeness
of a new person.
In 1998, Ruff was invited to photograph villas
designed by German architect Ludwig Mies van
der Rohe between 1927 and 1930. In these pho-
tographs, the buildings were treated similarly to
his early portraits: simple, clean, and neutral. The
photographs were commissioned for the first exhi-
bition held after the restoration of Haus Lange and
Haus Esters, gallery space for contemporary art in
Krefeld, Germany, originally designed by Mies van
der Rohe.
While Thomas Ruff’s subject matter may have
shifted over the past two decades, his intent hasRUFF, THOMAS