ABCDuane: A Duane Michals Primer

While the work of Duane Michals has always been personal ABCDuane is the first book to act as a visual memoir by this living legend. "The legendary photographer relates intimate themes of his life and art in a scrapbook memoir illustrated by his works - from portraits of Magritte to Warhol to painted tintypes and the revolutionary multiple-image sequences and handwritten texts for which he is best known - and by pieces from his personal art collection now donated to Pittsburghs Carnegie Museum of Art. Whether a portrait of Eugne Atget by Berenice Abbott collages by Joseph Cornell or drawings by David Hockney the works of Michalss artistic lodestars sit alongside his own haunting images - some never-before-published - and his mordantly funny playful humble and heartbreaking observations on art photography and life - revealing the creative obsessions of a uniquely beloved artist. The images and texts by Duane Michals assembled here are like the artist himself - impossible to categorize; perhaps there is no better way to organize them than alphabetically. Whether recalling encounters with many of the past centurys most illustrious artists (Balthus Duchamp) celebrating literary heroes (Whitman Joyce) addressing essential human concerns (Grief Childrens Stories Homosexuality God) or revealing deeply personal snippets of life with a partner suffering from dementia (Fred Said). ABCDuane is a creative autobiography and the perfect primer for Michalss vastly influential body of work - both for those who have loved it for the past half-century and those being delighted by it for the first time."