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Collection

Looking at America: Photographs from the Collection, 1850-1980

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Artist(s): Duane Michals (McKeesport, PA, Feb 18, 1932 - )
Title: Death Comes to the Old Lady
Date: 1969
Dimensions: 3 1/2 in. x 5 1/8 in. (8.89 cm x 13.02 cm)
Medium: five gelatin silver prints
Credit Line: Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, gift of Irene Schwachman, 1975.42

Object Information

Classical in his sculpturally formed body and tousled long hair, the model in Duane Michals’s series reenacts the myth of Narcissus, the ancient Greek demigod who, against the warnings of the gods, fell in love with his own reflection. The fatal event is narrated through the first four frames of the piece, while in the last image the tragic character attempts to break the invisible divide between reality and reflection, the mortal and the divine. From European Old Master painters, such as Caravaggio, to modern artists like Salvador Dalí, the myth of Narcissus has captured artists’ imagination since antiquity. Unlike previous, painted depictions of the subject, however, Michals’s serial work takes full advantage of the photographic medium to capture the narrative arc of a theatrical act dealing with themes of love, loss, and (im)mortality.  

Exhibition History

This object was included in the following exhibitions:

Looking at America: Photographs from the Collection, 1850-1980, Addison Gallery of American Art, 5/8/1981 - 6/14/1981
American Photography from the Permanent Collection in Celebration of the 50th An, Addison Gallery of American Art, 10/13/1989 - 12/18/1989
Motion and Document - Sequence and Time: Eadweard Muybridge and Contemporary Ame, Addison Gallery of American Art, 6/28/1991 - 12/12/1993

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