Innovative use of photo-sequences, often incorporating text to examine emotion and philosophy
Notable work
Sequences, The journey of the spirit after death, Chance meeting; photographs
Duane Michals (/ˈmaɪkəlz/ "Michaels"; born February 18, 1932) is an American
photographer.[1] Michals's work makes innovative use of photo-sequences, often incorporating text to examine emotion and philosophy.[2]
Education and career
Michals's interest in art began at age 14 while attending watercolor university classes at the
Carnegie Institute in
Pittsburgh.[3] In 1953, he received a B.A. from the
University of Denver.[4] In 1956, after two years in the Army, he went on to study at the
Parsons School of Design with a plan to become a graphic designer; however, he did not complete his studies.[3]
He describes his photographic skills as "completely self-taught."[2] In 1958, while on a holiday in the
USSR he discovered an interest in photography.[4] The photographs he made during this trip became his first exhibition held in 1963 at the Underground Gallery in New York City.
For a number of years, Michals was a commercial photographer, working for Esquire and Mademoiselle, and he covered the filming of The Great Gatsby for Vogue (1974).[5] He did not have a studio. Instead, he took portraits of people in their environment, which was a contrast to the method of other photographers at the time, such as
Avedon and
Irving Penn.
Though he has not been involved in gay civil rights, his photography has addressed gay themes.[8][9] In discussing his notion of the artist's relationship to politics and power however, Michals feels ultimately that aspirations are useless:
I feel the political aspirations are impotent. They can never be seen. If they are, it will only be by a limited audience. If one is to act politically, one simply puts down the camera and goes out and does something. I think of someone like Heartfield who ridiculed the Nazis. Who very creatively took great stands. He could have been killed at any moment, he was Jewish, and my God what the guy did. It was extraordinary. You don't see that now.[10]
He is noted for two innovations in artistic photography developed in the 1960s and 1970s. First, he "[told] a story through a series of photos"[5] as in his 1970 book Sequences. Second, he handwrote text near his photographs, thereby giving information that the image itself could not convey.[5][13]
Bailey, Ronald H. (1975). The photographic illusion, Duane Michals. New York: Crowell.
ISBN0-690-00787-6.
Winterhalter, Teresa (1997). "Desire under the lens: critical perspective in a Duane Michals photograph". Literature and Theology. 11 (3): 229–238.
doi:
10.1093/litthe/11.3.229.
Goysdotter, Moa (2013). Impure Vision: American Staged Art Photography of the 1970s. Lund: Nordic Academic Press.
ISBN9789187351006.
Film and video
Howard, Edgar B.; Haimes, Theodore R. (1978). Duane Michals (1939–1997). NY: Checkerboard Film Foundation. (DVD, 14 minutes, New York Film Festival, 1979, B&W/color)
Diamonstein, Barbaralee (1981).
Visions and Images: Duane Michals. American Photographers on Photography. American Broadcasting Companies.
Archived from the original on December 13, 2021. (Video, 29 minutes, B&W/color)
Guichard, Camille (2014). Duane Michals: The Man Who Invented Himself. (Full-length documentary)
^
abShaw, Kurt (November 18, 2004).
"Pictures of a life". Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Archived from
the original on November 29, 2010. Retrieved June 25, 2011.
^"Duane Michals". Crocker Art Museum. Retrieved January 7, 2019.
^Lyons, Nathan (1966). Toward a Social Landscape: Bruce Davidson, Lee Friedlander, Garry Winogrand, Danny Lyons, Duane Michals. New York, NY: Horizon Press.
OCLC542009.