BOLDTYPE ISSUE #56: Artwork By
Michael Wolf
The cover of this issue of Boldtype is a detail of Pink Poodle in Hong Kong, a photograph by Michael Wolf from the book The Photographed Animal — Useful, Cute and Collected, which was co-published in 2005 by Steidl and the Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany, and distributed by D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, Inc. The book was published on the occasion of the the exhibition of the same name at the Museum Folkwang, which ran from October 22, 2005 to January 15, 2006.
The Photographed Animal is a historical survey of photographs of animals from the 1840s to the present day. The volume features some 250 pictures by more than 150 photographers. The work ranges from Louis-Auguste Bisson's daguerreotypes of reptiles and bulls and Comte de Montizón's collodion-process prints of giraffes and hippos to Cecil Beaton's silver-gelatin print of actress Katherine Hepburn posing with a peacock and William Wegman's 20 x 24 Polaroid of one of his pet Weimaraners caught in a comical act.
Michael Wolf was born in Munich, Germany, in 1954. He grew up in the United States and studied at UC Berkeley and at the University of Essen in Germany. Wolf has been living and working as a photographer and author in China for more than ten years.
Wolf is represented by Robert Koch Gallery in San Francisco and Fifty One Fine Art Photography in Antwerp, Belgium. His monographs include Hong Kong: Front Door/Back Door, published by Thames & Hudson in 2005, and Sitting in China, published by Steidl in 2002.
- Paul Laster
