Born in 1968 in Remscheid, Germany.
Lives and works in Berlin, Germany and London, United Kingdom.
Throughout his career Wolfgang Tillmans has challenged the potentiality of making pictures and has brought a new kind of subjectivity to photography. He explores traditional genres such as portraiture, still life, or landscape with a constant interest in the limits of visibility by pairing intimacy and playfulness with social critique, thus questioning the existing values and hierarchies. Through the integration of genres, subjects, techniques, and exhibition strategies, Tillmans expands conventional ways of approaching photography and addresses the fundamental question of what it means to create pictures in an increasingly image-saturated world.
In 2000, he was the first photographer and first non-British artist to receive the Turner Prize, from Tate, London. From 2003 to 2009, Tillmans served as a professor at the Städelschule in Frankfurt. Tillmans was the recipient of the 2015 Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography and in January 2018, he was awarded the Kaiserring prize from the city of Goslar in Germany.
The Centre Pompidou hosted a major solo exhibition in June 2025, transforming 6,000 m² of space into a curatorial experiment, establishing a dialogue between his work and the library he is inhabiting for the occasion. This exhibition marks his first institutional monograph in Paris since his ambitious installation at the Palais de Tokyo in 2002.
In recent years, Wolfgang Tillmans has been the subject of major retrospectives at prominent institutions, including the Tate Modern in London in 2017 and the MoMA in New York in 2022. He also curated a significant traveling exhibition across Africa titled Fragile (2018 − 2022 in Kinshasa, Nairobi, Johannesburg, Addis Ababa, Yaoundé, Accra, Abidjan, Lagos).
He has also had solo exhibitions at Centre Pompidou, Paris (2025); Albertinum, Dresden (2025); AGO, Toronto (2023); SFMOMA, San Francisco (2023); MoMA, Museum of Modern Art, New-York (2022); mumok, Wien (2021); Wiels Brussels (2020); Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2019); Carré d'art, Nîmes (2018); Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel (2017); Tate Modern, London (2017); Fundação de Serralves, Porto (2016); The National Museum of Modern Art, Osaka (2015); Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (2014); Museo de Arte de Lima, Lima (2013); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2012); Sao Paulo Museum of Modern Art, Sao Paulo (2012); Serpentine Gallery, London (2010); Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin (2008); Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington (2007); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2006); Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporanea, Mexico (2006); Castello di Rivoli, Rivoli (2002); Museum Ludwig, Koln (2001) ; Museo Nacional Reina Sofia, Madrid (1998) among others.
Wolfgang Tillmans was also featured in several international group shows and Biennales such as Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo (2023); Bourse de Commerce, Fondation Pinault, Paris (2022); Centre Pompidou Metz (2021); Fondation Beyeler, Riehen (2021); The Kitchen, New York (2020); Barbican Centre, London (2020); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2019); MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2019); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2019); MMK, Frankfurt (2018); Villa Medici, Rome (2018); Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich (2018); Aishti Foundation, Liban (2017); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2017); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2017); Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2016); CAPC, Bordeaux (2016); Museo Jumex, Mexico City (2015); The Israel Museum, Jerusalem (2015); MANIFESTA 10, St Petersburg (2014); 14th International Architecture, Central Pavilion, Venice Biennale, Venice (2014); Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2014); New Museum, New York (2013); Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover (2013); Tate Britain, London (2012); Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2011); Les Rencontres d’Arles, Arles (2010); Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai (2010); Turin Triennial, Turin (2008); Museum Ludwig, Koln (2007); Kunstmuseum, Basel (2005).
His works have joined the collections of the Fondation Beyeler, Basel; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli; Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines; Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain, Paris; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel; Kyoto National Museum of Art, Kyoto; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; CAPC, Bordeaux; Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (MUDAM), Luxembourg; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo (MAXXI), Rome; Museum Ludwig, Koln; MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Royal Academy of Arts, London; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tate Britain, London; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
