The DIA Collection

The African Art collection highlights the creativity and traditions of sub-Saharan Africa. From carved masks and figures to ceremonial objects and textiles, each piece offers insight into Africa's cultural expressions. The collection spans centuries, showing the symbolic meanings, spiritual practices, and everyday life of many diverse communities. Through sculpture, metalwork, and design, visitors are introduced to how African art shaped both local traditions and global movements.

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The DIA’s collection of American art is one of the best in the world. Totaling nearly 3,000 works of art, it includes paintings, sculpture, furniture, metalwork, ceramics, glass, and textiles produced in North and South America between 1600 and 1950. Produced by generations of artists and artisans, the objects tell many stories and express a wide range of attitudes about America and Americanness—America as a place, an identity, and an aspiration. Highlights include Cotopaxi (1862), Frederic Church’s dramatic painting of an erupting South American volcano; Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (1875), James Whistler’s path-breaking evocation of fireworks over London; and the world-famous Detroit Industry Murals (1932-33) by the Mexican artist Diego Rivera.

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The DIA’s Asian, Islamic, and Ancient Middle Eastern collections represent a diverse range of cultural traditions and artmaking practices that originate from a vast region that stretches across a third of the earth’s landmass. Spanning more than 8,000 years, the collections include ceramics, sculpture, painting, calligraphy, textiles, glassware and more, demonstrating the remarkable artistic innovation and rich cultural exchanges of these interrelated regions. 

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The DIA’s Asian, Islamic, and Ancient Middle Eastern collections represent a diverse range of cultural traditions and artmaking practices, spanning more than 8,000 years and originating from a vast region that encompasses more than one third of the earth’s landmass. Demonstrating both artistic innovation and networks of exchange across this region and beyond, the collections include ceramics, sculpture, metalwork, painting, calligraphy, arts of the book, textiles, carpets, lacquerware, enameled glass, and more. The collections also include more recent works by artists identifying with Asia, the Islamic lands, and related diasporic communities, bringing the collection into the global present. 

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Established in 2000, the Center for African American Art is one of the first curatorial departments exclusively devoted to African American art at a major fine arts museum. The department is committed to increasing awareness of the contributions of African Americans to the arts community, and to highlighting American history, society, and creative expression from an African American perspective. 

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The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) champions contemporary art across media and cultures, inviting some of the most exciting global voices in contemporary art into dialogue with Detroit and its communities. The DIA’s contemporary collection includes paintings, sculpture, design, and new media such as video, installation, and performance art, made after 1950. The DIA actively acquires and commissions work by local, national, and international artists, often in collaboration with other curatorial departments, with a focus on supporting the work of vanguard artists who offer new perspectives on pressing issues at home and abroad. 

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The Detroit Institute of Arts stewards a broad and significant  collection of modern European paintings, sculpture, decorative arts from  1850 to 1970. The collection reflects the early interests of the  museum’s founders and patrons. Progressive museum trustees with daring  tastes established an avant-garde focus early on, purchasing the first  paintings by Vincent van Gogh (Self-Portrait, 1887) and Henri Matisse (The Window, 1916) to enter a public American museum collection.

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Imagine yourself taking part in a lively wedding dance or gazing upon a cheerless cemetery. Picture a scene where a woman commits an act of heroism to save her people. These images are just a few of those you will find in the European Paintings collection, recognized as one of the finest in the United States. It includes work by well-known painters of religious imagery, portraits, landscapes and scenes from everyday life. The collection features nearly 1,000 paintings that date from the 1100s until 1950.

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Discover over 1,400 years of European art and design. Admire masterful sculpture in marble, terracotta, and wood. Marvel at precious metalwork, stained glass, elegant ceramics, and colorful tapestries. Encounter knightly armor and experience refined interiors. The museum’s world-class sculpture and decorative arts collection includes over 7,000 objects made between the 400s and 1850. These works represent some of European history’s most exciting moments and showcase the creativity of accomplished artists.

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Do you know how ancient Greek, Etruscan and Roman civilizations worshipped their gods and goddesses and honored the dead? Would you like to discover what daily life was like in ancient Greece and Italy? This DIA collection of more than 2,500 objects offers a window into the classical world by showcasing sculptures, architectural fragments, ceramic and glass vessels, jewelry, and utilitarian objects among other fascinating items covering approximately thirteen centuries.

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The Indigenous Americas collection honors the traditions of Native communities from North, Central, and South America. Spanning ancient civilizations to contemporary art, the collection features pottery, textiles, tools, and ceremonial objects that reflect the ties of Indigenous peoples to their lands. Visitors can explore a range of artistic expressions, from the motifs of Andean textiles to the beadwork of North American nations, offering a glimpse into the creativity of Indigenous cultures.

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The DIA’s Asian, Islamic, and Ancient Middle Eastern collections represent a diverse range of cultural traditions and artmaking practices, spanning more than 8,000 years and originating from a vast region that encompasses more than one third of the earth’s landmass. Demonstrating both artistic innovation and networks of exchange across this region and beyond, the collections include ceramics, sculpture, metalwork, painting, calligraphy, arts of the book, textiles, carpets, lacquerware, enameled glass, and more. The collections also include more recent works by artists identifying with Asia, the Islamic lands, and related diasporic communities, bringing the collection into the global present.

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The Oceanic Art collection showcases the artistry of the Pacific Islands, including Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. This collection captures the connection between art, nature, and spirituality through objects such as masks, tools, and textiles. From carved ancestral figures to woven artifacts, Oceanic art demonstrates the connection between people and their environment. Visitors explore how these works communicate identity, status, and reverence for nature.

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The Performing Arts Collection contains more than 10,000 original film  and theater photographs, posters, and ephemera from all over the world.  The materials date from the early 1900s to the present.

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Explore more than five centuries of works on paper, from 16th-century preparatory drawings and sketches to contemporary photographs and artworks exploring various printmaking techniques, such as lithography, woodcut, engraving and etching. This collection contains approximately 35,000 prints, drawings, photographs, watercolors, posters and artists’ books by some of the world’s best known artists and representing a variety of cultures, with particular emphasis on European and American works.

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