Duane Michals received a B.A. from the University of Denver (1953) and worked as a graphic designer until he focused on taking pictures in the late 1950s.
Without formal photographic training, Michals broke new ground in an era dominated by documentary photography.  In the 1960s he began using the medium to tell stories in narrative form by employing a series of images.  The use of sequencing borrows from a cinematic frame-by-frame technique, communicating ideas through a number of panels that detail either temporal progression or constantly altering perceptions of everyday objects.            
Early on, Michals also began to incorporate text into his sequences and single images.  Far from a pedantic interpretation of his work, these captions either tell stories or pose questions in such as way as to expand the scope of the picture.  Throughout his career, Michals has used these deceptively simple methods to contemplate with insight and fascination subjects as universal as love, loss, innocence and immortality.
His work has been exhibited extensively in the United States and abroad since 1963 in institutions as diverse as the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; the George Eastman House, Rochester; the International Center of Photography, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne; Museum of Photography, Antwerp; and the Sprengel Museum, Hanover.  Michals' photographs can also be found in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; the Australia National Gallery of Art, Auckland; and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, among others.
Michals' most recent book is What I Wrote/ Ce Que J’Ai Ecrit (Delpire Editeur, 2008). Other recent monographs include: Foto Follies: How Photography Lost its Virginity on the Way to the Bank (Steidl Publishers, 2007, The House I Once Called Home (Enitharmon Editions, 2003), Questions Without Answers (Twin Palms, 2001), The Essential Duane Michals (Bulfinch, 1997), and Salute, Walt Whitman (Twin Palms, 1996).