Thomas Struth is a photographer from Germany. He initially made his reputation with many black and white photographs of Düsseldorf and New York. Alongside these, he made numerous family portraits, and photographed the exhibits in various museums. He prefers the medium of black and white photography for most of his work, but originally, he was a painter. He studied at the Düsseldorf academy from 1973 until 1980. It was here he met Gerhard Richter and Peter Kleemann, and in 1976 he switched to photography as a student of Bernd and Hiller Becher.
In his photographs, Thomas Struth tends to avoid strong contrasts of darkness and light. Often the pictures are of empty streets that exude a quietness. His most well-known work, Museum Photographs, began in 1989. Initially working mostly in Germany and New York, Struth began to travel throughout Asia, Africa, and Australia in the 1990s. On these travels he found the inspiration for the large-scale jungle pictures which formed the basis of the work Pictures from Paradise, made up of Australia’s Daintree Rainforest. His prestigious commissions include family portraits of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. Struth lives and works in New York and Berlin, and is married to Tara Bray Smith.
