China’s famous train photographer Wang Fuchun, whose work attracted international acclaim, has died in Beijing aged 79

Wang’s work won awards all over the world after he started taking pictures in the late 1970s and documented a time of major transformation

His photos have been exhibited all over the world, with his most famous work being Chinese on the Train, a photography book published in 2001

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A man on an old mobile phone on the Shenyang–Dalian railway line in China, 1994. Photo: Wang Fuchun

Published: 3:59pm, 15 Mar 2021Updated: 5:06pm, 15 Mar 2021

China’s “godfather of train photography” Wang Fuchun, whose portraits of travellers on China’s railways garnered worldwide fame, died in Beijing on Saturday at the age of 79 from an undisclosed illness.

Starting his career as a railway worker in the 1970s, Wang, who won both domestic and international awards in photography, had spent over 40 years taking pictures of people from different walks of life on trains, providing a portrait of Chinese society during a time of radical transformation.

Chinese photographer Wang Fuchun in an undated portrait: Photo: Handout

A winner of the Golden Statue Award for China Photography, the top award for individual photographers in China, Wang travelled all across the country and documented glimpses of everyday life on the country’s railway carriages.

“Photography isn’t complicated. Basically, you look for what inspires you and take a picture. It’s all about the act. Nothing technical, nothing complicated,” he told SCMP’s Post Magazine in 2018.

This photograph shows passengers sticking their heads out of windows, on the Tongliao-Jining railway, in China in 1998. Photo: Wang Fuchun

His best-known collection, Chinese on the Train, a photography book published in 2001, won him the Special Contribution Award of the International Photographers Association of Los Angeles.

With works exhibited in Europe and the US, he was also listed as one of the 30 most influential Asian photographers by Asia’s leading photography platform, Invisible Photographer Asia.