Duane Michals – A Photography Legend Comes to RISD

Internationally-renowned photographer, Duane Michals, one of the great photographic innovators of the last century, is widely known for his work with series, multiple exposures, and text. Hear Michals reflect on his long and extensive career. 

Free. A standby line will be available for those interested in seats made available by last minute cancellations. Arrive to the RISD Museum between 5:45-6:15 pm. Seating is not guaranteed.

This program is presented by RISD’s Photography Department with support from the RISD Museum.

Duane 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.

Over the past five decades, Michals’ work has been exhibited in the United States and abroad. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, hosted Michals’ first solo exhibition (1970). In 2019, The Morgan Library and Museum in New York exhibited a career retrospective of Michals’ work The Illusions of the Photographer: Duane Michals at the Morgan.
Michals’ 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; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and the RISD Museum. Michals's archive is housed at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.
Michals received a BA from the University of Denver in 1953 and worked as a graphic designer until his involvement with photography deepened in the late 1950s. He currently lives and works in New York City.