Look Inside
Which art books, prints and posters are available by and about this artist? Here is a sample of items of interest to a typical collector:
This publication presents the Interiors series created by Thomas Ruff (born 1958) as a student at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in the 1970s/80s. Most of the pictures, which are simultaneously sentimental and sardonic, were taken in the petite-bourgeois apartments of family and friends in the Black Forest region.
Text by Thomas Bernhard in German and English
Thomas Ruff has had an ongoing fascination with astronomy. His attempt at photographing the night sky failed due to the lack of detail captured in the pictures taken. Ruff's equipment could not render the detail he wanted as well as air and light pollution added to the difficulties of capturing the beautiful constellations. Ruff's solution was to take observation shots from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) based in the Andes in Chile.
This publication brings together for the first time the full 164 plates from the STERNE series which were carefully scanned for the publication.
One of the two limited editions of the book (each with a different print in an edition of 50). This edition came with the limited edition_02 print.
One of the two limited editions of the book (each with a different print in an edition of 50). This edition came with the print Edition_10.
Catalog printed in commemoration of the Thomas Ruff exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, and the 21st Century Museum for Modern Art, Kanazawa.
Hard Copy Zine Designed by Aaron Stern on the occasion of the exhibition held at ICP, New York in 2026 and curated by Aaron Stern.
Featuring the work of: Daniel Arnold, David Black, John Divola, Zoë Ghertner, Takashi Homma, Jerry Hsu, Shaniqwa Jarvis, Ari Marcopoulos, Ryan McGinley, Asako Narahashi, Collier Schorr, Stephen Shore, Gray Sorrenti, Thomas Ruff, Andre D. Wagner
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Thomas Ruff (b. 1958) rose to international prominence in the late 1980s as a member of the Düsseldorf School, a group of young photographers who had studied under Bernd and Hilla Becher and became known for their experimental approach to the medium and its evolving technological capabilities. Ruff in particular made a radical break with the style of his teachers, establishing a distinct approach to conceptual photography through a variety of strategies, including the use of color, the purposeful manipulation of source imagery—originally through manual retouching techniques and eventually through digital methods—and the enlargement of the photographic print to the scale of monumental painting. Working in discrete series, Ruff has since utilized these methods to conduct an in-depth examination of a variety of photographic genres, including portraiture, the nude, landscape, and architectural photography, among others. Highly influential to subsequent generations of photographers, Ruff's overarching inquiry into the "grammar of photography" accounts for not only his heterogeneous subject matter, but also the extreme variation of technical means used to produce his series, ranging from anachronistic devices to the most advanced computer simulators and covering nearly all ground in between.
In 2024, Ruff was the subject of the inaugural exhibition at Malkastenforum, the new building of the Malkasten artists’ association founded in Düsseldorf in 1848. A solo presentation of the artist’s work was on view at K20 – Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, in 2020–2021. Works from tableaux chinois, alongside fifteen other series dating back to 1989, were on view in Thomas Ruff: after.images – Works 1989–2020, a major solo exhibition of the artist’s work curated by Martin Germann at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, in 2021. In 2022, Thomas Ruff: Méta-photographie was on view at the Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Étienne Métropole (MAMC+), France. Later in 2022, a two-person exhibition, Dark Matter, featuring work by Ruff and James Welling was presented at Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany.
In 2018, Ruff was featured in Photography Spotlight, an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London that celebrated the opening of the museum’s new Photography Centre. The artist created a new body of work titled Tripe as a special commission to inaugurate the space.
Ruff’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at prominent institutions worldwide, including Whitechapel Gallery, London (2017); The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (2016; traveled to 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan); Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2016); Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent (2014; traveled to Kunsthalle Düsseldorf); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2012); LWL-Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Münster (2011); Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga, Spain (2011); Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2009); Museum für Neue Kunst, Freiburg, Germany (2009); Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2009); Műcsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest (2008); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2007); Sprengel Museum Hannover, Germany (2007); Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Geneva (2004); and Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2002).
In 2001–2002, Thomas Ruff: Photographs 1979 to Present opened at Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany. This major solo exhibition of the artist’s work traveled through 2004 to the Museet for samtidskunst, Oslo; Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany; Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Artium Museoa: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo del País Vasco, Vitoria Gasteiz, Spain; Museu de Serralves, Porto; Tate Liverpool, England; and Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw.
Ruff’s work has been represented by David Zwirner since 2000, and in that time he has had thirteen solo exhibitions with the gallery, including numerous shows in New York (2000, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, and 2022), as well as exhibitions in London (2016, 2025), Hong Kong (2019), and Paris (2021).
Work by the artist is held in museum collections worldwide, including the Museum of ModernArt, New York, Art Institute of Chicago; Dallas Museum of Art; Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg, Austria; Nationalgalerie, Berlin; K20 – Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; National Museum of Photography, Copenhagen; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent. Ruff lives and works in Düsseldorf.
