As former model Chris Royer explains to me, the best way to understand what it was like to work with Duane Michals is to use the Hungarian term “kinscvadászat,” which essentially means a “treasure hunt.” For Royer, a Duane Michals story was exactly that, “you were going on a trip, you knew you were going to discover things, it was a creative treasure hunt.”
Michals, who passed away on June 9 at 94, was born on February 18, 1932, in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. As a young boy he showed an interest in art and by age 14 he was taking watercolor classes at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. He went on to receive a B.A. from the University of Denver in 1953, and after a two year stint in the army, began studying at the Parsons School of Design, intent on becoming a graphic designer.
A trip to the U.S.S.R. in 1958 changed everything. The snaps he took while on vacation ignited a passion for photography. Michals abandoned the idea of becoming an art director and instead focused his energies on working behind the lens. The pictures from this trip would comprise his first exhibition at the Underground Gallery in New York in 1963.
While developing his practice as a fine arts photographer in the late 1960s, Michals began working for Condé Nast titles. One of his earliest assignments was a portrait of the musician Johnny Cash for the November, 1969, issue of Mademoiselle. Unlike most portraits, which are strictly a rendering of the subject, Michals photographed Cash through a window, using his own reflection as a primary element within the picture of the star quietly seated in his hotel room.
Allowing himself to be part of his images would become an important component of Michals’ work as he evolved as an artist. He also introduced text as an additional storytelling element and pioneered the idea of creating narrative through multiple images. As his close friend, the critic Philip Gefter, explained in The New York Times, Michals was “an artist of significant consequence” who can be credited as “the father of the photographic narrative sequence.” He was also openly gay at a time when many homosexuals remained closeted.
Michals contributed regularly for Vogue during the 1970s and 1980s. His work during that period ranged from shooting stills of Robert Redford and Mia Farrow in costume on set while filming The Great Gatsby, to reportage of the San Francisco ballet and jewelry designer Elsa Peretti hard at work in her legendary studio/apartment, to portraits of notable men, including Yves Saint Laurent, Dudley Moore, and Philip Glass.
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