ARTIST NAME: Duane Michals
|
ARTIST NAME: Duane Michals
|
Auction Results and Indebt Information on Duane Michals Art
 |
Duane Michals:
Duane Michals is a true innovator.
A poet, a philosopher, and a photographer, Michals has managed to merge his
three muses into a single output for a highly distinct and original body of
work. Poems and short stories are paired with his images, and photos are grouped
together into a story-telling series. His photos are set-up and surreal, his
writing is contemplative and philosophical, and in the end, Michals views on
life and the world around him shine through.
Born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, in 1932, Michals grew up in a typical working
class family. His father was a steel worker like so many other men in PA, and
his mother did not have a salaried job - her job was raising the family. He
became interested in photography at age 14 when he began taking Saturday
afternoon watercolor classes at Carnegie institute in Pittsburgh.
In 1953, he received a B.A. from the University of Denver, and went on to enroll
in the Parsons School of Design in 1956 with thoughts of becoming a graphic
designer. However, this only lasted a year, and he eventually dropped out to
take various jobs in the publishing field.
All the while, he maintained an interest in fine arts, with a high regard for
surrealist artists such as Magritte and Balthus. In 1958, during a three week
trip to Russia, Michals realized his passion for photography. He used a camera
borrowed from a friend to take portraits of people he encountered during his
travels. The work has been described as "plain, yet elegant," and led to Michals'
first public exhibition.
Eleven years later, Michals was making his living through commercial shooting,
despite the fact that he never owned a studio. "I prefer to photograph people in
their environment," Michals said in his introduction to his book Album, a
collection of his portraiture. "I hate studios. The things that people choose to
spend their lives with gives us clues as to whom they are more than their
hairline."
Michals proceeds to reveal a lot about his unique philosophy on portraiture in
this essay. "Some photographers can be very presumptuous about 'capturing'
another person with their cameras," he says. "My portraits in this book have
revealed nothing profound about the subjects or captured anything. They were
almost all strangers to me. How could I say anything about them when I never
knew them? What I did was share a moment with them, and now I share that moment
with you, no more and no less."
Michals clearly has a very refreshing, down-to-earth attitude about his work. In
interviews, he has said "I was lucky because I never went to photography school
and didn't learn the photography rules, and in not learning the rules, I was
free. I always say, you're either defined by the medium or you redefine the
medium in terms of your needs."
In terms of his artistic work, it wasn't readily accepted at the beginning...but
that did not faze him. "If I was concerned about being accepted, I would have
been doing Ansel Adams lookalikes, because that was easily accepted. Everything
I did was never accepted...but luckily for me, my interest in the subject and my
passion for the subject took me to the point that I wasn't wounded by that, and
eventually, people came around to me."
Michals currently has more than 20 books in print, has had exhibitions in
France, Great Britain, and the United States, and has won numerous awards.
-John Vettese
-Source: temple.edu
Duane Michals Books
Find
out how much an artwork of Duane Michals is worth