Born in 1959 in Hilversum, The Netherlands.
Past away in 2023 in Groningen, The Netherlands.
Lived and worked in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Erwin Olaf was an internationally exhibiting artist whose diverse practice centered around society’s marginalized individuals, including women, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community. In his early career, Olaf began as a photographer in journalism.
Later, he found his way into staged photography, where much of his work flourished. He photographed both inside and outside the studio. In 2019 Olaf became a Knight of the Order of the Lion of the Netherlands after 500 works from his oeuvre were added to the collection of the Rijksmuseum. Taco Dibbits, Rijksmuseum director, called Olaf “one of the most important photographers of the final quarter of the 20th century”. In 2025, two years after his passing, Olaf got a retrospective solo exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam. Rein Wolfs, Stedelijk museums director addressed that Olaf was “more than just a photographer, he was a versatile artist”.

A bold and sometimes controversial approach has earned the artist a number of prestigious collaborations, from Vogue and Louis Vuitton to the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. He served as the official portrait artist for the Dutch royal family in 2017, and designed the national side of the euro coins for King Willem-Alexander in 2013. He was awarded the Netherlands’ prestigious Johannes Vermeer Award, as well as Photographer of the Year at the International Color Awards, and Kunstbeeld magazine’s Dutch Artist of the Year. In 2023, His Majesty the King Willem-Alexander awarded him the Medal of Honor for Art and Science of the Order of the House of Orange.

In 2018, Olaf completed a triptych of monumental photographic and filmic tableaux portraying periods of seismic change in major world cities, and the citizens embraced and othered by their urban progress. After that, he continued to create artworks that addressed relevant issues in contemporary society. Much of Olaf’s work is contextualized by complex race relations, the devastation of economic divisions, and the complications of sexuality. Olaf has maintained an activistic approach to equality throughout his 40-year career after starting out documenting pre-AIDS gay liberation in Amsterdam’s nightlife in the 1980s. In 2024 The Winq Inspiration Award was posthumously awarded to Erwin Olaf for always standing up for the underdogs in society. Stating that he used his powerful voice to address many taboos in his work and spoke out firmly against injustice.

Erwin Olaf has exhibited worldwide, including Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga, Málaga, Spain; Museu da Imagem e do Som, São Paulo, Brazil; Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany; Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA; Centro Cultural De La Villa, Madrid, Spain; Kunsthalle München, Munich, Germany; Kyotography - The Museum of Kyoto Annex, Kyoto, Japan; National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung City, Taiwan; and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Santiago, Chile.
In the spring of 2019, Olaf’s work was the subject of a double exhibition at Kunstmuseum The Hague and The Hague Museum of Photography, as well as a solo exhibition at the Shanghai Center of Photography and an exhibition at The Rijkmuseum of Amsterdam. In 2021, he has mounted solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle München, Germany; the Suwon Museum of Art, Suwon, Korea. In 2022 Olaf presented a solo exhibition in the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung City, Taiwan and in 2023 at the Centro Niemeyer in Avilés, Spain. In 2025 Olaf got a retrospective solo exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam.

After his passing Olaf has had multiple exhibitions worldwide including Amsterdam, Spain, Turkey, Italy, United Kingdom, Korea and the United States of America.

Olaf’s work is included in numerous private and public collections, such as the Rijksmuseum and Stedelijk Museum, both in Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Paris, France; Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany; Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, The Netherlands, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, United States; Art Progressive Collection, United States, and the Pushkin Museum, in Moscow, Russia.