<Thomas Ranft was born 1945 in Königssee in Thuringia and spent the first years of his childhood in Eisenberg. In 1953 he moved with his family to Weimar, where he completed an apprenticeship as a tree nursery gardener. From 1967 to 1972 Thomas Ranft studied at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig. After his studies Thomas Ranft moved to Karl-Marx-Stadt. Two years later, he took part in plein airs and artist's festivals on Hiddensee, in Ahrenshoop, Bad Schandau, Wernigerode and Kolkwitz, among others, before he worked with Carlfriedrich Claus in 1976. He was on the board of the Galerie oben and a founding member of the "Clara Mosch" group of artists. Because Thomas Ranft met Ernst Jandl in 1985, he later illustrated Jandl's work "Der beschriftete Sessel". At the end of the 1980s Thomas Ranft worked as a teacher at the technical school for applied arts in Schneeberg. He has been a member of the Free Academy of Arts Leipzig since 1993 and co-founded the association "Kunst für Chemnitz" in 1994, of which he is also chairman. Thomas Ranft received the Hans-Theo-Richter-Prize of the Saxon Academy of Arts in 2003 and founded the New German Graphic Foundation in 2009. Thomas Ranft lives and works in Amtsberg near Chemnitz.