Hope Portrait 5

Erwin Olaf died on 20 September 2023 at the age of 64. He was a pioneering photographer for four decades, creating an idiosyncratic universe around universal themes such as hope, loneliness, freedom or lack thereof, and old age. ‘I prefer to show a perfect world with a crack in it.’ In 2018, Erwin Olaf transferred his core collection to the Rijksmuseum, comprising a selection of over 500 works spanning his career.