Thomas Struth

Trained under iconic German artists Gerhard Richter and Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Thomas Struth creates careful compositions that blur the line between painting and photography, addressing notions of institution, space and group dynamics. Inspired by his mentors' early “photo paintings” and stark black and white images, Struth developed a unique photographic perspective, creating portraits of families, architectural facades, urban experiences, and crowds. Often employing a large format camera, Struth began exploring industrial spaces, attempting to reflect the ever-evolving urban conditions of contemporary society. His later works introduced color, often featuring forests, jungles and various other natural landscapes. Other major series include a stoic investigation of family portraiture and the Museum Photographs series, which captures crowds of viewers as they regard iconic works of art and architecture. Struth believed that photography was “a tool of scientific origin for psychological exploration,” rather than a voyeuristic or fetishizing medium.

Struth had his first solo exhibition, at P.S. 1 in New York in 1978. Sine then, comprehensive retrospective exhibitions of his work have been organized by the Kunsthalle Bern in 1987, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston in 1994, Carré d’Art, Musée d’Art Contemporain in Nîmes, 1998, Dallas Museum of Art, 2002, Museum für Gegewart in Berlin, 2004, Museo de Art de Lima, 2005 and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In 1997 he was awarded the Spectrum International Photography Prize of Lower Saxony.