Looking Ahead: Current and Upcoming Exhibitions at the Detroit Institute of Arts
Updated Feb 3, 2022
February 3, 2022 (DETROIT)—The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) looks to the future with a variety of exhibitions that indicate a measured return to normal operations. This includes the much anticipated, once-in-a-lifetime exhibition Van Gogh in America, opening October 2, originally scheduled for 2020.
Exhibitions are free with museum admission unless otherwise noted ($). Museum admission is always free for residents of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties. Dates and titles are subject to change. All museum visitors must make an advance reservation by phone at 313.833.4005 or online at ticketapp.dia.org.
Hours:
Tuesday–Thursday, 9 a.m.–4 p.m.; Friday, 9 a.m.–9 p.m. Saturday & Sunday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.
General Admission:
Free for DIA members, residents of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties and students; Non tri-county residents, $14.00 adults, $6 ages 6–17, $9 seniors (ages 62+).
Membership:
To become a member or for information, call 313-833-7971.
Exhibitions currently on view
The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion
Through April 17, 2022
Fusing art and fashion photography in ways that break down their long-established boundaries, The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion features vibrant color portraits, conceptual images, and fashion editorial photographs by groundbreaking Black photographers. Over 100 photographs—many found in traditional lifestyle magazines, ad campaigns, and museums, as well as on social media channels—open up conversations around the roles of the Black body and Black lives as subject matter.
The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion is organized by Aperture, New York and is curated by Antwaun Sargent.
The exhibition is made possible in part by Airbnb Magazine.
At the Detroit Institute of Arts, major support is generously provided by Cadillac.
Additional support is provided the MSU Federal Credit Union and the Desk Drawer Fund and Maureen and Roy S. Roberts, Rhonda D. Welburn, and Bank of America.
Ed Note: Media kit with downloadable, high-res images and full press release can be found here: www.dia.org/nbvmedia
Detroit Style: Car Design in the Motor City, 1950–2020
Through June 5, 2022
This exhibition highlights the artistry and influence of Detroit car designers working between 1950 and today. Featuring 12 coupes and sedans inside of the museum that show significant achievements in style and technology. The cars include unique examples of experimental show cars created for display as well as iconic production models sold to the mass market. Design drawings will allow visitors to experience the creative and innovative processes that bring a vehicle from the drawing board to the street.
The cars, four from each of the Big Three American automakers, share the galleries with a selection of modern and contemporary paintings and sculptures that illuminate the conversation between the American art world and car culture.
Detroit Style: Car Design in the Motor City, 1950–2020 is organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Major funding is generously provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund, General Motors, and Mrs. Jennifer Adderley in loving memory of her husband, Mr. Terence E. Adderley. Additional funding is provided by the Marvin and Betty Danto Family Foundation, FCA US LLC, The Suburban Collection, Jennifer & Ambassador David Fischer and Darcy & David Fischer, Jr., and Consolidated Rail Corporation on behalf of William Milliken.
Additional support is provided by Barbara and William U. Parfet, TCF National Bank, The Fisher & Company Family, and the Friends of African & African American Art.
Major funding for the exhibition catalogue is generously provided by the Margaret Dunning Foundation.
Ed Note: Media kit with downloadable, high-res images and full press release can be found here: www.dia.org/detroitstylemedia
Shirley Woodson: Shield of the Nile Reflections
Through June 12, 2022
In Shield of the Nile Reflections, renowned Detroit artist, educator, and advocate Shirley Woodson presents her colorful, dream-like paintings of Black bathers in rivers. The imagery honors diasporic myth that the Nile holds transformative and nurturing benefits for people of African descent. In this series, Woodson’s bathers appear with a distinctive iconography consisting of human and animal life that symbolizes the historic, spiritual, and cultural significance of the river.
Shirley Woodson: Shield of the Nile Reflections is organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts
Ed Note: Media kit with downloadable, high-res images and full press release can be found here: www.dia.org/woodsonmedia
Opening in 2022
By Her Hand: Artemisia Gentileschi and Women Artists in Italy, 1500–1800 $
February 6–May 29, 2022
By Her Hand: Artemisia Gentileschi and Women Artists in Italy, 1500–1800 explores the untold role of women artists in Italy from the birth of the Renaissance until the Enlightenment. In this male-dominated Italian art world, these 17 women navigated many obstacles to succeed. Confident self-portraits, realistic still lifes, scenes of women's bravery, and meditative religious scenes reveal their technical skill and ingenuity. Nearly 60 artworks, including international loans, highlight the creativity of these women artists and celebrate their business savvy.
Beyond Artemisia Gentileschi, visitors will be introduced to a diverse and dynamic group of Italian women artists, from the court artist Sofonisba Anguissola (1532–1625) to the painter and printmaker from Bologna Elisabetta Sirani (1638–1665), among other talented and virtually unknown Italian women artists.
This is a ticketed exhibition. Visit www.dia.org/byherhand for more information.
By Her Hand: Artemisia Gentileschi and Women Artists in Italy, 1500–1800 is organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.
Major support is provided by the European Paintings Council, Masco Corporation, Huntington Bank, Anne G Fredericks, and the Valade Family.
Additional support is provided by Jennifer Adderley, Peter and Carol Walters, Mary Ann and Robert Gorlin, MSU Federal Credit Union and the Desk Drawer Fund, Claudia J. Nickel, the Nancy S. Williams Trust and Sharon Backstrom, executor, Brenda Naomi Rosenberg, an anonymous donor, the Richard and Jane Manoogian Foundation, and the Robert Lehman Foundation.
Funding is also provided by Ann Berman and Daniel Feld and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.
Ed Note: Media kit with downloadable, high-res images and full press release can be found here: www.dia.org/byherhandmedia
Van Gogh’s Artistic Roots: The Hague School and French Realism
March 28, 2022–January 22, 2023
This installation from the DIA’s permanent collection includes a selection of paintings and works on paper by 19th-century Dutch and French realist artists, all of whom were contemporaries of Vincent van Gogh. Highlighting the work of several artists that impacted Van Gogh’s early artistic development, the presentation anticipates and coincides with the DIA’s Van Gogh in America exhibition (October 2, 2022–January 22, 2023). These works on paper will be rotated throughout the duration of the installation.
Van Gogh’s Artistic Roots: The Hague School and French Realism is organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Van Gogh in America $
October 2, 2022–January 22, 2023
In 2022, the DIA will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its purchase of Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait, 1887—the first painting by this iconic artist to be bought by an American museum. In honor of the centenary of this landmark acquisition and as an early advocate for the artist in America, the DIA will present the first exhibition dedicated to the introduction and early reception of Van Gogh’s work in the United States. The exhibition will bring together approximately seventy of Van Gogh’s paintings, drawings, and prints from museums and private collections around the world and will illustrate the considerable efforts made by early promoters of modernism America—dealers, collectors, private art organizations, public institutions, and the artist’s family—to frame his biography and introduce his artistic production to the United States.
Van Gogh in America reveals how America’s view of Van Gogh’s work evolved during the first half of the twentieth century. Despite his work appearing in well over fifty group shows during the two decades following his American debut in the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art (commonly known as the Armory Show), it was not until 1935 that Van Gogh was the subject of a solo museum exhibition in the United States. Around the same time, Irving Stone’s novel Lust for Life was published, and its adaptation into film in 1956 shaped and solidified America’s popular understanding of Van Gogh. These touchstone moments will be explored in the exhibition.
The story, however, is also one that is unique to Detroit and the American Midwest more broadly. The Detroit Institute of Arts was a vanguard institution when it purchased Self-Portrait in 1922 and then exhibited the painting alongside works by Post-Impressionist artists Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin, in addition to twentieth-century European and American artists Raoul Dufy, Henri Matisse, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, and Joseph Stella, all of whom will also be represented in the exhibition. It was not until the following decade, however, that other American public, encyclopedic museums followed suit and bought examples of Van Gogh’s paintings for their permanent collections. Notably, the next four paintings were purchased by Midwestern public institutions: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; Saint Louis Art Museum; and Toledo Museum of Art. These important purchases—Olive Trees (1889; Nelson-Atkins); Stairway at Auvers (1890; Saint Louis); Houses at Auvers (1890; Toledo); and Wheat Fields with Reaper, Auvers (1890, Toledo)—will be featured in the exhibition.
This is a ticketed exhibition. Visit www.dia.org/vangoghinamerica for more information.
Van Gogh in America is organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts and is part of the Bonnie Ann Larson Modern European Artists Series.
Lead support is generously provided by the Founders Junior Council, The J. Addison and Marion M. Bartush Family Foundation, and Nancy and Sean Cotton.
Major support is provided by the William H. and Patricia M. Smith Family, Kenwal Steel, Frances and Kenneth Eisenberg, Nicole and Stephen Eisenberg, Mary Ann and Robert Gorlin, Alex Erdeljan, the James and Sally Scapa Foundation, the Marjorie and Maxwell Jospey Foundation, Spencer & Myrna Partrich, the Friends of Art & Flowers, Joanne Danto, Arnold Weingarden & Jennifer Danto Shore, and Huntington.
Additional support is provided by the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, Wells Fargo, and the Rocket Community Fund.
This exhibition is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Funding is also provided by Mrs. William Clay Ford, Mr. and Mrs. John W. Ingle, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. John W. Ingle III, Mr. and Mrs. John M. Sullivan, Jr., and Eleanor and Frederick Ford.
Major funding for the exhibition catalogue is generously provided by Jo Elyn and George M. Nyman.
Ed Note: Media kit with downloadable, high-res images can be found here: www.dia.org/vangoghmedia
Opening in 2023
James Barnor: Accra/London—A Retrospective
May 28, 2023–October 1, 2023
The DIA presents a major survey of Ghanaian photographer James Barnor, whose career as a studio portraitist, photojournalist and Black lifestyle photographer spans six decades. The exhibition presents a photographic record of social and political changes in London and Ghana’s capitol, Accra.
Born in 1929 in Ghana, James Barnor established his famous Ever Young studio in Accra in the early 1950s, capturing a nation on the cusp of independence in an ambiance animated by conversation and highlife music. In 1959 he arrived in London, furthering his studies and continuing assignments for influential South African magazine “Drum” which reflected the spirit of the era and the experiences of London’s burgeoning African diaspora. He returned to Ghana in the early 1970s to establish the country’s first color processing lab while continuing his work as a portrait photographer, embedding himself in the music scene. He returned to London in 1994.
James Barnor: Accra/London – A Retrospective is organized by the Serpentine Gallery, London, England.
Museum Hours and Admission
9 a.m.–4 p.m. Tuesdays–Thursdays; 9 a.m.–9 p.m. Fridays; 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays; closed on Mondays. General admission (excludes ticketed exhibitions) is free for Macomb, Oakland and Wayne County residents and DIA members. For all others, $14 for adults, $9 for seniors ages 62+, $8 for college students, $6 for ages 6–17. For membership information, call 313-833-7971.
###
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), one of the premier art museums in the United States, is home to more than 65,000 works that comprise a multicultural survey of human creativity from ancient times through the 21st century. From the first Van Gogh painting to enter a U.S. museum (Self-Portrait, 1887), to Diego Rivera's world-renowned Detroit Industry murals, (1932–33), the DIA’s collection is known for its quality, range and depth. The DIA’s mission is to create opportunities for all visitors to find personal meaning in art individually and with each other.
Programs are made possible with support from residents of Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties.
February 3, 2022 (DETROIT)—The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) looks to the future with a variety of exhibitions that indicate a measured return to normal operations. This includes the much anticipated, once-in-a-lifetime exhibition Van Gogh in America, opening October 2, originally scheduled for 2020.
Exhibitions are free with museum admission unless otherwise noted ($). Museum admission is always free for residents of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties. Dates and titles are subject to change. All museum visitors must make an advance reservation by phone at 313.833.4005 or online at ticketapp.dia.org.
Hours:
Tuesday–Thursday, 9 a.m.–4 p.m.; Friday, 9 a.m.–9 p.m. Saturday & Sunday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.
General Admission:
Free for DIA members, residents of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties and students; Non tri-county residents, $14.00 adults, $6 ages 6–17, $9 seniors (ages 62+).
Membership:
To become a member or for information, call 313-833-7971.
Exhibitions currently on view
The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion
Through April 17, 2022
Fusing art and fashion photography in ways that break down their long-established boundaries, The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion features vibrant color portraits, conceptual images, and fashion editorial photographs by groundbreaking Black photographers. Over 100 photographs—many found in traditional lifestyle magazines, ad campaigns, and museums, as well as on social media channels—open up conversations around the roles of the Black body and Black lives as subject matter.
The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion is organized by Aperture, New York and is curated by Antwaun Sargent.
The exhibition is made possible in part by Airbnb Magazine.
At the Detroit Institute of Arts, major support is generously provided by Cadillac.
Additional support is provided the MSU Federal Credit Union and the Desk Drawer Fund and Maureen and Roy S. Roberts, Rhonda D. Welburn, and Bank of America.
Ed Note: Media kit with downloadable, high-res images and full press release can be found here: www.dia.org/nbvmedia
Detroit Style: Car Design in the Motor City, 1950–2020
Through June 5, 2022
This exhibition highlights the artistry and influence of Detroit car designers working between 1950 and today. Featuring 12 coupes and sedans inside of the museum that show significant achievements in style and technology. The cars include unique examples of experimental show cars created for display as well as iconic production models sold to the mass market. Design drawings will allow visitors to experience the creative and innovative processes that bring a vehicle from the drawing board to the street.
The cars, four from each of the Big Three American automakers, share the galleries with a selection of modern and contemporary paintings and sculptures that illuminate the conversation between the American art world and car culture.
Detroit Style: Car Design in the Motor City, 1950–2020 is organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Major funding is generously provided by the Ford Motor Company Fund, General Motors, and Mrs. Jennifer Adderley in loving memory of her husband, Mr. Terence E. Adderley. Additional funding is provided by the Marvin and Betty Danto Family Foundation, FCA US LLC, The Suburban Collection, Jennifer & Ambassador David Fischer and Darcy & David Fischer, Jr., and Consolidated Rail Corporation on behalf of William Milliken.
Additional support is provided by Barbara and William U. Parfet, TCF National Bank, The Fisher & Company Family, and the Friends of African & African American Art.
Major funding for the exhibition catalogue is generously provided by the Margaret Dunning Foundation.
Ed Note: Media kit with downloadable, high-res images and full press release can be found here: www.dia.org/detroitstylemedia
Shirley Woodson: Shield of the Nile Reflections
Through June 12, 2022
In Shield of the Nile Reflections, renowned Detroit artist, educator, and advocate Shirley Woodson presents her colorful, dream-like paintings of Black bathers in rivers. The imagery honors diasporic myth that the Nile holds transformative and nurturing benefits for people of African descent. In this series, Woodson’s bathers appear with a distinctive iconography consisting of human and animal life that symbolizes the historic, spiritual, and cultural significance of the river.
Shirley Woodson: Shield of the Nile Reflections is organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts
Ed Note: Media kit with downloadable, high-res images and full press release can be found here: www.dia.org/woodsonmedia
Opening in 2022
By Her Hand: Artemisia Gentileschi and Women Artists in Italy, 1500–1800 $
February 6–May 29, 2022
By Her Hand: Artemisia Gentileschi and Women Artists in Italy, 1500–1800 explores the untold role of women artists in Italy from the birth of the Renaissance until the Enlightenment. In this male-dominated Italian art world, these 17 women navigated many obstacles to succeed. Confident self-portraits, realistic still lifes, scenes of women's bravery, and meditative religious scenes reveal their technical skill and ingenuity. Nearly 60 artworks, including international loans, highlight the creativity of these women artists and celebrate their business savvy.
Beyond Artemisia Gentileschi, visitors will be introduced to a diverse and dynamic group of Italian women artists, from the court artist Sofonisba Anguissola (1532–1625) to the painter and printmaker from Bologna Elisabetta Sirani (1638–1665), among other talented and virtually unknown Italian women artists.
This is a ticketed exhibition. Visit www.dia.org/byherhand for more information.
By Her Hand: Artemisia Gentileschi and Women Artists in Italy, 1500–1800 is organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.
Major support is provided by the European Paintings Council, Masco Corporation, Huntington Bank, Anne G Fredericks, and the Valade Family.
Additional support is provided by Jennifer Adderley, Peter and Carol Walters, Mary Ann and Robert Gorlin, MSU Federal Credit Union and the Desk Drawer Fund, Claudia J. Nickel, the Nancy S. Williams Trust and Sharon Backstrom, executor, Brenda Naomi Rosenberg, an anonymous donor, the Richard and Jane Manoogian Foundation, and the Robert Lehman Foundation.
Funding is also provided by Ann Berman and Daniel Feld and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.
Ed Note: Media kit with downloadable, high-res images and full press release can be found here: www.dia.org/byherhandmedia
Van Gogh’s Artistic Roots: The Hague School and French Realism
March 28, 2022–January 22, 2023
This installation from the DIA’s permanent collection includes a selection of paintings and works on paper by 19th-century Dutch and French realist artists, all of whom were contemporaries of Vincent van Gogh. Highlighting the work of several artists that impacted Van Gogh’s early artistic development, the presentation anticipates and coincides with the DIA’s Van Gogh in America exhibition (October 2, 2022–January 22, 2023). These works on paper will be rotated throughout the duration of the installation.
Van Gogh’s Artistic Roots: The Hague School and French Realism is organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Van Gogh in America $
October 2, 2022–January 22, 2023
In 2022, the DIA will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its purchase of Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait, 1887—the first painting by this iconic artist to be bought by an American museum. In honor of the centenary of this landmark acquisition and as an early advocate for the artist in America, the DIA will present the first exhibition dedicated to the introduction and early reception of Van Gogh’s work in the United States. The exhibition will bring together approximately seventy of Van Gogh’s paintings, drawings, and prints from museums and private collections around the world and will illustrate the considerable efforts made by early promoters of modernism America—dealers, collectors, private art organizations, public institutions, and the artist’s family—to frame his biography and introduce his artistic production to the United States.
Van Gogh in America reveals how America’s view of Van Gogh’s work evolved during the first half of the twentieth century. Despite his work appearing in well over fifty group shows during the two decades following his American debut in the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art (commonly known as the Armory Show), it was not until 1935 that Van Gogh was the subject of a solo museum exhibition in the United States. Around the same time, Irving Stone’s novel Lust for Life was published, and its adaptation into film in 1956 shaped and solidified America’s popular understanding of Van Gogh. These touchstone moments will be explored in the exhibition.
The story, however, is also one that is unique to Detroit and the American Midwest more broadly. The Detroit Institute of Arts was a vanguard institution when it purchased Self-Portrait in 1922 and then exhibited the painting alongside works by Post-Impressionist artists Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin, in addition to twentieth-century European and American artists Raoul Dufy, Henri Matisse, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, and Joseph Stella, all of whom will also be represented in the exhibition. It was not until the following decade, however, that other American public, encyclopedic museums followed suit and bought examples of Van Gogh’s paintings for their permanent collections. Notably, the next four paintings were purchased by Midwestern public institutions: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; Saint Louis Art Museum; and Toledo Museum of Art. These important purchases—Olive Trees (1889; Nelson-Atkins); Stairway at Auvers (1890; Saint Louis); Houses at Auvers (1890; Toledo); and Wheat Fields with Reaper, Auvers (1890, Toledo)—will be featured in the exhibition.
This is a ticketed exhibition. Visit www.dia.org/vangoghinamerica for more information.
Van Gogh in America is organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts and is part of the Bonnie Ann Larson Modern European Artists Series.
Lead support is generously provided by the Founders Junior Council, The J. Addison and Marion M. Bartush Family Foundation, and Nancy and Sean Cotton.
Major support is provided by the William H. and Patricia M. Smith Family, Kenwal Steel, Frances and Kenneth Eisenberg, Nicole and Stephen Eisenberg, Mary Ann and Robert Gorlin, Alex Erdeljan, the James and Sally Scapa Foundation, the Marjorie and Maxwell Jospey Foundation, Spencer & Myrna Partrich, the Friends of Art & Flowers, Joanne Danto, Arnold Weingarden & Jennifer Danto Shore, and Huntington.
Additional support is provided by the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, Wells Fargo, and the Rocket Community Fund.
This exhibition is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Funding is also provided by Mrs. William Clay Ford, Mr. and Mrs. John W. Ingle, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. John W. Ingle III, Mr. and Mrs. John M. Sullivan, Jr., and Eleanor and Frederick Ford.
Major funding for the exhibition catalogue is generously provided by Jo Elyn and George M. Nyman.
Ed Note: Media kit with downloadable, high-res images can be found here: www.dia.org/vangoghmedia
Opening in 2023
James Barnor: Accra/London—A Retrospective
May 28, 2023–October 1, 2023
The DIA presents a major survey of Ghanaian photographer James Barnor, whose career as a studio portraitist, photojournalist and Black lifestyle photographer spans six decades. The exhibition presents a photographic record of social and political changes in London and Ghana’s capitol, Accra.
Born in 1929 in Ghana, James Barnor established his famous Ever Young studio in Accra in the early 1950s, capturing a nation on the cusp of independence in an ambiance animated by conversation and highlife music. In 1959 he arrived in London, furthering his studies and continuing assignments for influential South African magazine “Drum” which reflected the spirit of the era and the experiences of London’s burgeoning African diaspora. He returned to Ghana in the early 1970s to establish the country’s first color processing lab while continuing his work as a portrait photographer, embedding himself in the music scene. He returned to London in 1994.
James Barnor: Accra/London – A Retrospective is organized by the Serpentine Gallery, London, England.
Museum Hours and Admission
9 a.m.–4 p.m. Tuesdays–Thursdays; 9 a.m.–9 p.m. Fridays; 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays; closed on Mondays. General admission (excludes ticketed exhibitions) is free for Macomb, Oakland and Wayne County residents and DIA members. For all others, $14 for adults, $9 for seniors ages 62+, $8 for college students, $6 for ages 6–17. For membership information, call 313-833-7971.
###
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), one of the premier art museums in the United States, is home to more than 65,000 works that comprise a multicultural survey of human creativity from ancient times through the 21st century. From the first Van Gogh painting to enter a U.S. museum (Self-Portrait, 1887), to Diego Rivera's world-renowned Detroit Industry murals, (1932–33), the DIA’s collection is known for its quality, range and depth. The DIA’s mission is to create opportunities for all visitors to find personal meaning in art individually and with each other.
Programs are made possible with support from residents of Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties.