his return to the United States, he saw the greater
potential of his Russian portraits and began to move
into the commercial photography field, finding
steady success. His first group exhibition, which
also featured the work of Garry Winogrand, was in
1959 at the Image Gallery in New York. Starting
with his initial commercial commission doing the
publicity stills for the Broadway musical revue,The
Fantasticks, Michals soon found steady work doing
freelance photography for such varied magazines
such asEsquire, Mademoiselle, Show, Vogue, The
New York Times, Horizon,andScientific American.
Then, in 1964, Michals began a personal project
photographing the empty, unpeopled spaces within
the city, seeing their stage-like implications. By 1966,
frustrated with the weaknesses of the camera and the
rules about what photography was supposed to be,
he began doing photographic sequences of 5 to 15
images. Like all of his ‘‘photo-stories,’’ each precon-
ceived and staged sequence in natural light is simple
and logical yet seemingly illusory. These narrative
tableaux anticipate the fictive strategies popular to
the postmodernist artists of the 1980s.
Derived from his belief ‘‘what I cannot see is infi-
nitely more important than what I can see,’’ Michals’
early sequences, such asThe Spirit Leaves the Body
(1968), Fallen Angel (1968), and Chance Meeting
(1969), build a story while simultaneously increasing
the psychological tenor. Each three and a quarter by
five inch image is masterfully emotionally psycholo-
gical, sexually provocative, and elusive in its realistic
representation. Influenced by the fusion of reality/
unreality in the Surrealist paintings of Rene Magritte
and the hauntingpittura metafisicaof Giorgio de
Chirico’s paintings, as well as the documentary tradi-
tion in photography, Michals has developed a style
of telling unresolved graphic riddles in tableau form.
Fuzzy focus, double exposure, the blur, and other
imperfections of the photographic process enhance
the immediacy of each scene. Thematically, the
photographs of Duane Michals dwell upon his obses-
sion with love and death. The place of dreams,
unconscious, and spiritual wishes become the subject
for his camera as the intangible materializes. The
strength of Michals’ vision lies in his acknowledg-
ment of our spiritual yearnings and desires.
An early interest in verse and the works of Walt
Whitman led Michals to begin writing poetry in
- In 1974, Michals began to write on his photo-
graphs, thereby subverting the viewer’s literal expec-
tations. The touch of the hand is apparent. Mistakes
are included, leaving an impression of chance and
authenticity. One of his best-known images, ‘‘A Let-
ter from My Father,’’ is a photograph taken in 1960
but reprinted in 1975, the year his father died, with
Michals’ handwritten thoughts. Poignant and pri-
vate, the poetic handwritten text tells about an unful-
filled promise, adding a dimension that is markedly
different than that of the visual.
Michals continued to push the boundaries placed
upon photography. In 1975, Michals eliminated
photography altogether inFailed Attempt to Photo-
graph Realityby writing on a piece of paper, includ-
ing the words ‘‘...To photograph reality is to
photograph nothing.’’ Then, anticipating the hybrid
conceptualism of the postmodernists, Michals began
painting on his own photographs in 1978. InCeci
n’est pas une photo d’une Pipe(1978), a reference to
Magritte, Michals sought to show the inevitable
limitations of the single photograph. In the late
1970s, Michals began to include more overt refer-
ences to his homosexuality. In his books,Homage to
Cavafy(1978) andThe Nature of Desire(1986), his
ideas on normality as being culturally defined, the
beauty within both sexes, and the legitimacy of affec-
tion between sexes comes through the eloquent
openness of his words and images.
Working simultaneously in both the commercial
and fine art photography fields, Michals has mana-
ged to bridge the historical friction between them,
seeing the mutual possibilities and exchange of ideas
long before the 1990s acceptance of fashion photo-
graphy as art. He sees no division and does his
commercial work alongside his art photography. Pre-
ferring real, naturally lit locations, yet disdaining
both the studio and the darkroom, all of his work
contains a lyrical element, as exemplified in his album
cover, Synchronicity, for the musical group The
Police. His commercial success has granted him the
financial ability to pursue his personal fine art work.
Since 1964, Michals has been represented in
major solo exhibitions throughout the world, and
his photographs are found in both museum and
private collections internationally. Beginning with
Sequencesin 1970, over 20 books of his images
have been published.The Essential Duane Michals
(1997), a compilation of his ongoing photographic
career, includes both his commercial and fine art
photography. Michals lives in New York City.
SusanTodd-Raque
Seealso:Hand Coloring and Hand ToningBiography
Born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, 18 February 1932. Stu-
died art at the University of Denver (1949–1953), B.A.,
1953; studied art at Parsons School of Design (1956–
1957); self-educated in photography. Assistant art direc-
tor,Dance Magazine, New York, 1957; paste-up artist,MICHALS, DUANE