Duane Michals received his BA from the University of Denver in 1953 and worked as a graphic designer until his connection with photography intensified in the late 1950s. Michals made significant strides in the field during the 1960s, becoming widely known for his frame-by-frame format that referenced photojournalism and cinematic sequencing. Each of his series is comprised of single, small, silver gelatin prints depicting the unfolding of an event. Michals also includes text as a central component of his work, combining the serious with the funny and the mundane with the extraordinary. He often comments on the universal themes of love, death, beauty, reflection and timelessness.
Over the past five decades, Duane Michals' work has been exhibited in the United States and abroad. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, hosted Michals' first solo exhibition in 1970, which was followed the next year by the George Eastman House. In 2005, his photographs were features in “Big Bang: Destruction and Creation in Art of the 21st Century,” an exhibition the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. The International Center for Photography, New York, also featured Michals’ work in their 2005 “Recent Acquisitions: Some Versions of the Portrait.” In 2008, Michals’ 50 years in photography were celebrated with a retrospective at the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, Greece, and the Scavi Scaligeri in Verona, Italy.
Michals was honored with a CAPS Grant in 1975, a National Endowment for the Art Fellowship in 1976, The International Center of Photography Infinity Award in 1989 and the Foto Espana International Award in 2001. His archive is permanently housed at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA.
Selected Collections:
Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Museum of Modern Art, New York
National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan
Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles