New DU Photo Lab Honors Legacy of Alumnus Duane Michals

Michals with University of Denver students. Courtesy photo. 

In recognition of the late alumnus and renowned photographer Duane Michals’s  (BA ’53) extraordinary artistic work, sensibility, and generosity, the University of Denver's College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences (CAHSS) will name its newly renovated photo lab/darkroom, slated to open in spring 2027, in his honor.

"The School of Art & Art History community mourns the loss of Duane and extends our heartfelt condolences to his family and loved ones,” said School of Art & Art History Director Kate Casanova. “We are grateful that his enduring photographs allow us to continue experiencing his singular way of seeing the world."

Michals first distinguished himself in the photography world in the 1960s with his groundbreaking, cinematic, frame-by-frame approach that wove photos and text into moving narratives. The innovative technique enhanced his visual storytelling and captured the photographer’s uniquely lyrical—and often tragic-comic—observations. 

Over the years Michals befriended and photographed artistic and cultural icons including Andy Warhol and René Magritte, whose surreal paintings inspired his emotionally evocative and often surreal work.

Michals’s extraordinary photographs have adorned the walls of leading museums worldwide. Today, his work is held in permanent collections, including the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Moderna Museet, Stockholm; the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh houses his archive. 

Photographs featured in DU’s April 2026 exhibit of his portraiture at the Vicki Myhren Gallery were drawn from a major gift of his work Michals made to the University of Denver. They reveal his approach to portraiture as a kind of transcendent encounter between artist and subject. 

According to Geoffrey Shamos, director of the Vicki Myhren Gallery and curator of  University Art Collections, Michals’s generosity matched his artistic brilliance. “He was always eager to spend time with our students, visiting classes, giving lectures, discussing their work, and sharing stories with remarkable candor and wit," he said. 

Those encounters left a lasting impression. 

“His impact on DU lives on not only through his extraordinary photographs but through the curiosity, confidence, and ambition he inspired in so many young artists,” Shamos said.

The new photo lab/darkroom, located in the School of Art & Art History Shwayder Art Building down the hall from the student-art-centered Davis Gallery, includes updated equipment for environmentally friendly processing and improvements to make the space ADA-accessible. Shamos considers the naming a tribute to the visionary possibilities Michals sparked in so many students. 

Michals didn’t buy his first camera and discover his true calling until after his college graduation. But his liberal arts education inspired him to experiment with all kinds of art forms as an undergraduate. Encouraged by a professor, he even entered and won an art contest sponsored by a group of artists and people passionate about the arts in the greater Denver community, boosting his confidence and vision for the future. 

Raised in a small town outside Pittsburg, Michals credited DU with opening his eyes to the world and broadening his horizons, Shamos noted. He added that “during his final days, Duane was pleased and honored to learn about the photo lab/darkroom being named to honor his legacy in the history of photography and the university.”

During one of his last visits to campus, “Duane spent an entire afternoon with our students discussing photography and philosophy and sharing jokes over slices of pie. On another visit, he enthusiastically participated in a critique for a course on narrative sequences in photography, a genre he created. He was thoughtful and encouraging, reminding the students that the most meaningful photographs begin with ideas, not technique.”