5:15 am, April 22, 1903, Duane Michals

Artwork Overview

Duane Michals, 5:15 am, April 22, 1903
Duane Michals, 5:15 am, April 22, 1903
Duane Michals
5:15 am, April 22, 1903
1973
Duane Michals, artist
born 1932
5:15 am, April 22, 1903, 1973
Portfolio/Series title: "The Heart in Dreams," published in Esquire
Where object was made: United States
Material/technique: gelatin silver print
Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 8.7 x 12.9 cm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 3 7/16 x 5 1/16 in
Frame Dimensions (Height x Width x Depth): 24 1/4 x 32 1/4 x 0 3/4 in
Weight (Weight): 10 lbs
Credit line: Gift of Esquire, Inc.
Accession number: 1980.0257.01-12
Not on display
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Images

Label texts

Exhibition Label:
"Time/Frame," Jun-2008, Robert Fucci, Shuyun Ho, Lauren Kernes, Lara Kuykendall, Ellen C. Raimond, and Stephanie Teasley
“Eva dreamed this: her father…rolled over off Rena’s vacant place and lay on his back in the midst of the bed and stared up again-in darkness still, through plaster and lathing-and said, Eva. Now.” Excerpted from Reynolds Price’s short story, “The Heart in Dreams,” these lines served as captions for the first and last images in this series of twelve photographs taken by Duane Michals for Esquire. Frame by frame, Michals reveals each suspenseful moment of Eva’s unfolding nightmare.

Exhibitions

Time/Frame
Spencer Museum of Art Interns 2007–2008, curator
2008
Esquire Photographs
Thomas Southall, curator
1982

Resources

Audio

Didactic – Art Minute
Didactic – Art Minute
Episode 166 Nov-2008, Ellen Raimond I’m David Cateforis with another Art Minute from the Spencer Museum of Art. Taking his cue from film stills and comics, the American artist Duane Michals casts himself and others in posed photographs staged within mundane settings. Michals created "5:15 am, April 22, 1903" for the April 1973 issue of Esquire magazine. It accompanied “The Heart in Dreams,” a Reynolds Price short story, told from multiple perspectives, about a young girl named Eva who runs away from home to marry her much older teacher. Michals portrays Eva’s nightmare as it unfolds in three horizontal rows of four black and white images. Linking the scenes together is the sinister presence of Eva’s father as he slips silently through his sleeping family’s simply furnished quarters. Michals conveys Eva’s understanding of her father’s insidious nature by showing us first Eva’s mother, then her brother and finally her sister being smothered in their own beds by the aging man. 5:15 am is currently on view in Time/Frame, a special exhibition at the Spencer through December 14th. With thanks to Ellen Raimond for her text, from the Spencer Museum of Art, I’m David Cateforis.