The handwritten caption reads: “When he was young, he could not imagine being old, and now that he is old, he cannot imagine ever having been young.” Duane Michals is ostensibly describing a third-person character (“he”), but the experience of aging he describes sounds firsthand. The seated man in his photograph, moreover, looks nothing like (nor notably older than) the “young” man whose painted likeness returns his gaze. These odd discrepancies, typical of Michals’s informal directorial style, only serve to underline his message: time makes us strangers to our youthful selves.
Duane Michals (b. 1932), When He Was Young, 1979. Gelatin silver print with manual additions. Purchased on the Photography Collectors Committee Fund, 2018.45.