06/11/2026
From my friend Arthur Ollman:
My dear friend Duane Michals has died. For 50 years he played with death and life. He made jokes about dead Duane. I can't believe he would have seen his own death as a sad event. In 1971 I bought Duane Michals' new book, "Journey of the Spirit After Death." The book consisted of a single sequence of 27 images illustrating the death and afterlife of a single person. He took a different path toward an expanded kind of mindfulness. Duane perfected a method of producing short narratives in images alone or more often with small handwritten texts below each image. His sequences were not the abstract spiritual koans of Minor White. Nor were they the photo essays of Life magazine. Rather they were closer to storyboards for a new visual language that could magically apprehend the ineffable. Till a few days ago his interest was in a full frontal dance with the invisible verities of life, death, desire, memory, religion, dreams…all things that are not readily photographable. He was not often interested in photographing pretty nouns, nor does he mistake the appearance of things for their reality. And he was funny. Often very funny. I don't need to go deeper into his work, as it's easy for anyone to locate authoritative texts about Duane and his prolific career.
In 1988 I was in Maine to give one of the keynote presentations at the Maine Photographic Workshop's annual Congress, a large gathering of passionate photo people, in Rockport. Another program on the schedule was a sort of debate between Joel Peter Witkin, dressed in black and taking the role of the Prince of Darkness, versus Duane, dressed in white as the Prince of Light. There was a good deal of humor, and of course Darkness scorned Light and in return Light loved Darkness. Perfect casting and a sharp lesson in how a finely balanced societal organization invites entropy. It was then that I first met Duane, the Prince of Light, the man in white.
I can't relate all of our visits in this format. I brought him to San Diego to give talks on three occasions, each time to large crowds. In 1988 I had the photographer and rock star Graham Nash present Duane and Arnold Newman the Museum of Photographic Arts' Century Award for lifetime achievement.
In 1991 I curated his retrospective exhibition that traveled to nine museums in the US. For months I tried to think of a title for the show. Nothing seemed to capture his cleverly entertaining spirit, his profoundly inventive voice. One day I told a friend that I didn't know what to call the Duane Michals show, it hit me…."The Duane Michals Show." That was it. In each venue the reports came back that it attracted the largest crowds they had ever experienced. I recall that Duane and I took a cab to the opening at the International Center of Photography in New York and we could barely get in! The crowds were so intense that it took us 20 minutes to squeeze our way into the galleries. At the Milwaukee Art Museum, the director, who was not a photography person, arrived at the overcrowded opening and as he walked in he saw me and asked, incredulously, "Who is this guy?”
To attend a Duane Michals lecture is to have an experience that will stay with you till you can no longer retain memories. He arrived at the podium as if spring loaded. He exploded into a disquisition about time and how it can't be stopped, and now is gone and time doesn't flow, it rockets. He lunged at politics, and the hypocrisies of the Religious Right, churning out disparaging commentary. He had audiences cheering, applauding and laughing till they can't breathe. It's standup comedy with as much wisdom as humor. He told awful jokes that made you look around to see if others are laughing before you dared.
In 1993 I was invited by photographer Linda McCartney to a concert by her husband Paul at Meadowlands in New Jersey. She gave me backstage passes and asked if I knew Duane Michals and if so could I bring him. They had never met Duane but admired his work. Thus I brought Duane to his first rock concert. Paul dedicated a song to Duane, saying…"This one is for our friend Duane, who is attending his first rock concert. I'll be gentle."
Almost every time Duane and I are together I make photographs of him and of course, he loves posing. With a penchant for surrealistic airs, he affects forlorn and sober expressions in the manner of Buster Keaton.
Duane's life, at the age of 94 had its rough parts. He had open-heart surgery a few years ago and he took care of his partner of more than 58 years, the architect Fred Goree, who bore all of the indignities of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. They married in 2011. Duane determined to take the difficult path of keeping Fred at home till the end. Yet the healing balm of his wit leavened the mood without diminishing his clear view of mortality.
No photograph of any subject can capture its reality. I could make a hundred images of Duane Michals and never identify him. I hope to keep trying. This one is in his home in 2025. The other is 1990 with my daughter nearly 2. Another is "Duane Conjures Light" from 2014. And the 4th is Duane's Stigmata also 2014 after his heart surgery. You lose a person like Duane by your own death, not by his.
