Michael Lange (1953-2025)

We mourn the loss of photographer Michael Lange, who died in January 2025 at the age of 72.

With Michael Lange, we lose an outstanding photographer and a critical mind who championed the interests of photography on many levels.

Michael Lange was a self-taught photographer who pursued his path in the field with unwavering dedication and independence. From the early 1980s onward, he photographed for magazines such as Stern, Spiegel, Geo, Manager Magazin , and Art , creating social reportage, artist portraits, and features on science and business. However, while Michael Lange enjoyed considerable success in the magazine world, he gradually began to distance himself from it. The upheavals in the media industry led him to a radical step: he turned to independent photography.

In 2010, his first independent series , LA-DRIVE BY, was released – a dark, almost menacing portrait of Los Angeles. Photographed from a car, the series conveys an atmosphere somewhere between documentary and introspection. This was followed by landscape cycles on the themes of forest (2012), river (2014), mountain (Cold Mountain, 2018), and pond (Pond, 2023). Lange had a remarkable ability to bring us closer to the beauty and mystery of nature in a way that transcends the visible. Like few other landscape photographers, from Anselm Adams to Sebastião Salgado, he sometimes wrestled for years to capture the perfect landscape motif. His oeuvre establishes him as a master of existentialist landscape photography. Michael Lange described his work thus: "The silence and solitude in nature do me good. I develop new ideas and images. And I learn a lot about myself." – and what Lange learned from nature, he is able to convey to his viewers.

His work has been internationally acclaimed and exhibited in renowned galleries and museums. Beyond his artistic endeavors, Michael Lange was a man of great openness, sensitivity, and genuine curiosity, as well as an inspiring conversationalist. The F.C. Gundlach Foundation is honored to be the future custodian of Lange's photographic archive. We look forward to engaging with his work, which will continue to accompany and move us even after his death.