German photographer Michael Wolf, who spent the past 25 years in Hong Kong mostly focusing on the city’s urban landscape, has died at the age of 65. The Dutch Museum of The Hague Photography announced yesterday that Wolf died suddenly at his home on the island of Cheung Chau, Hong Kong. Wolf started his career as a photojournalist for German magazines Stern and Geo . In 2003 he started working as an independent artist in Hong Kong. He recently launched Cheung Chau Sunrises , a collection of photos taken from his home. Most of his previous works have focused on life in big cities. His most well-known work is his 2009 book Architecture Of Density , where he turned his lens on Hong Kong’s tall buildings, depicting them as “never-ending repetitions of architectural patterns”. In 2006, Wolf photographed residents crammed into the city’s oldest public housing complex, Shek Kip Mei Estate, which had been earmarked for demolition. Tokyo Compression (2010), meanwhile, showcases a collection of portraits of people crushed inside the Japanese capital’s subway trains, many with their faces pressed against windows. Wolf’s work is in permanent collections around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, Museum Folkwang in Essen, Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Gemeentemuseum The Hague, according to the Dutch Museum of The Hague Photography. In 2005 and 2010 he won first prize at World Press Photo. Throughout his years in Hong Kong, Wolf’s lens was constantly excited by what others in the city might find mundane or too small to wonder: small shrines to earth god Tu Di Gong wedged into busy shop windows; illuminating glass walls in night-time Central; sunrises in outlying island Cheung Chau where Wolf lived; and old corner houses earmarked for demolition. Photographer Michael Wolf talks about his life and art “What I photographed is not only the buildings, but a metaphor of a big city,” Wolf said in an interview in 2015. “Hong Kong is a city of materialism. The government always wants development but the cost is that part of the city is disappearing. When we lose it, we begin to miss it. “I photographed a lot of buildings [but] I hope the next generation would not have to know how Shek Kip Mei and Sham Shui Po look like from photos.” Sarah Greene, director of the Blue Lotus Gallery in Sheung Wan, which showed his work, says Wolf was curious about life, art and photography. “He was a sensitive observer who perceived the world like no other. His main body of work depicts life in cities [using photos from] Tokyo, Chicago and Paris. “Yet his main muse was Hong Kong. Hong Kong was his favourite city and it kept inspiring him – zooming out on the ‘beehive’ with his iconic work Architecture of Density and zooming in on the veins of the city by exploring the vernacular beauty of the back alleys,” she says. Book review: Small God, Big City, by Michael Wolf “He will be dearly missed by his wife Barbara, son Jasper, his colleagues, galleries, fans and numerous friends.” One of his photobooks published in 2015 was dedicated to the pro-democracy Occupy Movement from 2014, the largest civil disobedience movement in Hong Kong’s history. The movement was also known as the Umbrella Movement because protesters used umbrellas to fend off pepper spray used by the police. Michael Wolf photo exhibit may breach privacy law, expert warns In collaboration with local photographer Lam Yik-fei, Wolf captured countless umbrellas in the city’s back alleys, stretched and in all colours and patterns. Lam’s images of demonstrators and clashes in the movement are also in the book.