Magritte front and back

Artist Duane Michals (American, born 1932)

Date1965

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 4 7/8 × 7 1/4 inches (12.38 × 18.42 cm)

Credit LineGift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Object number2005.27.4268

SignedOn sheet recto, bottom center, in black pen: "Duane Michals"

InscribedOn sheet recto, top, in black pen: "Magritte front and back"; On sheet recto, bottom center, in black pen: "4/25".

Markingsnone

Edition/State/Proofed. 4/25

On View

Not on view

Collections

Photography

Terms

DescriptionImage of a man wearing a suit and hat. In the image, the man is facing the viewer while an overlapping image of him facing the wall is superimposed next to him.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Faces: an Exhibition from the Hallmark Photographic Collection. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 16 September 16 - October 21, 1984, no. 58.

Twentieth-Century Photographers: Selections from the HPC. Columbus College of Art & Design, Columbus, OH, March 28 - April 27, 1996, no cat.

In the Public Eye: Photography and Fame. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, March 8 - June 15, 2008, no cat.

Gallery Label

In 1965, photographer Duane Michals traveled to Brussels, Belgium, to meet and photograph the famed Surrealist painter René Magritte. Michals’s portrait of Magritte is a playful homage to the painter’s own style. He shows Magritte in a double exposure simultaneously from the front and back. Michals evokes the fascinating duality of a conventional-looking man who produced dreamlike, fantastical paintings.

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