Thomas Schütte (German, b.1954) is a sculptor and draughtsman born in Oldenburg, Germany. From 1973 until 1981, he attended the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, where he studied with Fritz Schwegler and Gerhard Richter. During the start of his career, Schütte constructed modest architectural models. In the 1980s and 1990s, his work seemed increasingly attuned to human situations and social concerns. A well-known example of Schütte’s work from the 1980s is House for Two Friends (1983). During the 1990s, he created a variety of large-scale public sculptures, such as Large Ghosts (1996), a set of three figures that appear simultaneously robotic and corporeal. More recently, in the late 1990s and 2000s, Schütte began creating other sculptural works, including a series of large, three-dimensional, free-standing heads, as well as a collection of One Man Houses, which are small, detailed architectural models of modern homes. Schütte’s works have been exhibited at museums and galleries around the world, such as the National Gallery in London, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others. He currently lives and works in Düsseldorf.
