Since the late seventies, Thomas Struth (b.1954) has been known for his architectural and urban photographs, portraits, landscapes, and museum interiors. Trained first in painting, Struth took up photography in 1974 while a student at the Dusseldorf Academy of Fine Arts under Gerhard Richter, and later, Bernd and Hilla Becher in 1976. First photographing people in the streets of Dusseldorf, and other cities, from 1974 to 1977, he later drew on this experience in an early body of work, the black & white street and cityscapes, which began in 1977. This body of work would later lead to his first solo exhibition at P.S.1 in 1978. Struth went on to produce similar series in Paris (1979), Rome (1984), Edinburgh (1985), and Tokyo (1986), among other cities. He then moved into portraiture of friends and family in the 1980s that were psychologically oriented.

Photo: Rineke Dijkstra, courtesy of Schirmer/Mosel