Struth, Thomas

Born in Geldern, Germany, on 11 October.

Moved to Düsseldorf to study at the Academy of Fine Arts, where he trained with professors such as Gerhard Richter as well as Bernd and Hilla Becher.

Obtains the first PS1 scholarship from the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf, which funded a nine-month stay in New York. Takes the opportunity to photograph views of the city, as he had already begun to do in Düsseldorf, capturing its atmosphere.

Sent to Yamaguchi, Japan, by Keiko and Hideo Shimada to prepare an exhibition in their gallery. Takes advantage of this trip to photograph Tokyo and Kyoto.

An exhibition featuring Struth’s urban landscapes is held at the Kunsthalle Bern under the title Unconscious Places, which will then travel to the Yamaguchi Art Museum.

Participates in the second edition of the Skulptur Projekte Münster, held every ten years.

At this time he begins to take Photographs of museums, a series of images that explore the relationship between the public and well-known works of art.

His first institutional exhibition is held in the US, Photographs, at The Renaissance Society, Chicago.

The Documenta IX exhibition in Kassel shows The Monday group, and the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London also exhibits his work.

He receives the Werner Mantz Prize, awarded by the Werner Mantz Foundation in Maastricht.

Several solo exhibitions open, such as Portraits at the Museum Haus Lange in Krefeld; and Directions: Thomas Struth: Museum Photographs, at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.

Starts teaching photography at the University of Arts and Design in Karlsruhe, where he will work for three years.

He exhibits at the St. Louis Art Museum in Missouri, and at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Germany.

Presents Strangers and Friends at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts; at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London; and the Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.

Strassen opens at the Kunstmuseum in Bonn, Germany.

Begins to develop the idea of “video portraits”, which he will continue to explore for seven years. These are videos that record the mood changes of people who pose in front of the camera.

Receives the Spectrum international photography prize from the Niedersachsen collection in Germany.

Collaborates with video artist Klaus vom Bruch on Project Berlin 1997, which will be exhibited in several European cities, such as Lucerne (Switzerland) and Hamburg (Germany) over the next few years.

The Portraits exhibition opens at the Sprengel Museum in Hanover.

The Thomas Struth: Still exhibition is held at Carré d’Art, the contemporary art museum in Nîmes. He also exhibits at the Galician Centre of Contemporary Art, Santiago de Compostela.

A decade after its inception, Struth returns to the subject of museum photography, with new ideas and perspectives.

The Thomas Struth STILL exhibition is presented at the Centre National de la Photographie in Paris, which will travel to the Shimada Gallery in Tokyo and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

Thomas Struth: My Portrait opens at the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, an exhibition that will also travel to the Kyoto National Museum of Art.

The Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden, Germany, puts on the exhibition Dschungelbilder.

The University of Salamanca also hosts the exhibition New Pictures from Paradise.

Thomas Struth opens at the Dallas Museum of Art, Texas. This exhibition will tour several American museums throughout this year and the next: the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

Struth exhibits the video piece Read This Like Seeing It for the First Time at the Berne Biennale

Along with other artists, he is invited by Franca Falleti, director of the Florence Academy Gallery, to create a piece that pays tribute to Michelangelo’s David.

The Pergamon Museum exhibition opens at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin.

Portraits-une heure is also presented at the CAPC Musée d’art contemporain in Bordeaux, featuring a series of video portraits.

Thomas Struth: Images of Peru opens at the Lima Art Museum.

Begins his series Nature & Politics, exploring different technologies.

The Making Time exhibition opens at the Prado Museum in Madrid, with photographs that portray the relationship between the public and the works, including some taken in the museum itself.

The exhibition Thomas Struth opens at the Museo d’arte Contemporanea Donnaregina (Museo Madre ) in Naples.

Several exhibitions open in different countries around Europe: Thomas Struth, at the Cycladic Art Museum in Athens; Thomas Struth, at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg; and Thomas Struth: Family Life, at the De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art in Tilburg, The Netherlands.

Thomas Struth, Photographs 1978–2010 opens to the public at Kunsthaus, Zurich, Switzerland. Over the next two years, this major retrospective of his career will travel to other institutions, such as the Museu Serralves in Porto, the K20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf and the Whitechapel Gallery in London.

Lives as an artist in residence in Villa Aurora, Los Angeles.

The Royal Institute of British Architects appoints him an honorary member for his contribution to architecture.

The exhibition Thomas Struth: Photographs is held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Five Works opens at the Netherlands Museum of Photography in Rotterdam.

On Reality opens at the Ivorypress Space in Madrid, an exhibition that combines Struth’s photography with Iglesias’ sculpture.

Named an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and awarded the Royal Photographic Society Centennial Medal, where he is also recognised as an honorary academic.

Thomas Struth: Nature & Politics, initially held at the Folkwang Museum in Essen, subsequently travels to other institutions: the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin; the High Museum of Art in Atlanta; and the St. Louis Art Museum (the following year).

Thomas Struth: Figure Ground, the largest retrospective of Struth’s work to date, is exhibited at the Haus der Kunst in Munich, which brings together photographs from all the series tackled by the artist throughout his career.

Named Honorary Magister Artium Gandensis of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium.

Animals is presented in the Parcours section of the Art Basel fair, a series of public art pieces exhibited in different spaces throughout the city of Basel.

The Thomas Struth exhibition is held at the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado, focusing on the photographs the artist took in the Middle East reflecting different areas and layers of society, including family portraits, research sites and religious settings.

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents the exhibition Thomas Struth: Figure Ground, which covers many of the series tackled by the artist throughout his career.

Curated by the artist himself, the exhibition Composition ’19. Thomas Struth at the Hilti Art Foundation (Vaduz, Liechtenstein) intertwines his photographs with paintings and sculptures belonging to the Hilti Art Foundation.

The exhibition Thomas Struth: Nature & Politics is held at the MAST Foundation in Bologna,  which brings together photographs taken since 2007 in scientific and industrial settings.

Some of his works are included in the exhibition Sections/Intersections. 25 years of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Collection, a large selection of pieces taken from the museum’s collection, exhibited to mark the institution’s 25th anniversary.

Exhibition Unbewusste Orte / Unconscious Places at the Max Hetzler Gallery in Berlin, and presentation of his works on CERN, as part of Nature and Politics, at the Max Hetzler Gallery in London.

Thomas Struth: Nature & Politics opens at the Marian Goodman Gallery in Paris. He is awarded the Helena Vaz da Silva European Award for raising public awareness about the continent’s cultural heritage.