Duane Michals (b. 1932)
Duane Michals, legendary photographer, artist, and author, has exhibited worldwide in galleries and museums -- from The Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1970 to the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh in 2014 -- but never before has he staged an exhibition of his greatest obsession: his books. Ever since Duane Michals purchased his first copy of Leaves of Grass (illustrated by Rockwell Kent) with his paperboy money, books have remained a primary passion.
Michals was born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania in 1932, and he received a BA from the University of Denver in 1953. After serving in the Army and working as a graphic designer, he began to make photographs in 1958 while traveling in the Soviet Union. It was with these pictures that Michals made his first book -- three versions each with a different cover -- and thus he forged an eternal love affair between the camera and the page.
Michals first made significant, creative strides in the field of photography during the 1960s. In an era heavily influenced by photojournalism, Michals manipulated the medium to communicate narratives. The sequences, for which he is widely known, appropriate cinema’s frame-by-frame format. Michals has also incorporated text as a key component in his works. Rather than serving a didactic or explanatory function, his handwritten text adds another dimension to the images’ meaning and gives voice to Michals’ singular musings, which are poetic, tragic, and humorous, often all at once.
Michals's work belongs to numerous permanent collections in the U.S. and abroad, including the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Moderna Museet, Stockholm; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Michals's archive is housed at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.
Michals is currently represented by DC Moore Gallery.
Duane Michals
The Fifth Avenue Shooter, 2017
Mixed media
71 x 9 x 13 in (180.34 x 22.86 x 33.02 cm)
Duane Michals
Zeus Strikes Trump, 2017
Mixed media
30 x 12 x 1 in (76.20 x 30.48 x 2.54 cm)
Duane Michals
The Lyin King, 2017
Mixed media
48 x 39 x 1 in (121.92 x 99.06 x 2.54 cm)
