Portrait of Don Juan, ca. 1986
Stephen Paul Day, American, born 1954
fused glass and metal
fused glass and metal
oil on canvas
oil on canvas
etching printed in black ink on cream laid paper
ink jet print on paper
gelatin silver print
oil on ivory
oil on canvas
etching printed in black ink on laid paper
biscuit porcelain
watercolor on ivory
etching printed in black ink on laid paper (?) taped to wove paper
ink on paper
silk, watercolor, wood
black chalk with touches of red chalk on buff antique laid paper
gelatin silver print
watercolor on ivory
gelatin silver print
wool only, very lustrous
wool with linen
D-Cyphered: Portraits by Jenny Risher will take viewers on a photographic timeline that makes up the story of the Detroit hip-hop scene. Often overlooked by the movements in New York and Los Angeles, Detroit’s hip-hop history is deeply shaped by the various elements of Motown and Detroit techno. Since the emergence of Eminem and his movie 8 Mile, and the recognition of the genius of the late J. Dilla, Detroit has seen a deep underground scene emerge and gain national recognition. Through th...
The Detroit Institute of Arts will present a dossier exhibition featuring two masterworks of French eighteenth-century portrait sculpture lent from the Musée du Louvre. Created by the greatest sculptor of the Enlightenment, Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741–1828), the portraits depict two of America’s most iconic founders, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. As Guests of Honor, the portraits will be displayed in the company of selected works that similarly depict Franklin, Washington, and Robert...
Fusing art and fashion photography in ways that break down their long-established boundaries, The New Black Vanguard 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 nineteen sculptures in this exhibit—made between 1850 and 2000—show different approaches American artists used to confront the past, shape the present, and hope for a brighter future. A bronze portrait transforms an American businessman into a Roman emperor. A pyramid of plywood reimagines the form of an ancient wonder. Abstract steel and fiberglass ice cream challenged notions of what a monument could be. Some were made for private commemoration and others for busy city streets. &...
Subjects from everyday life, local architecture and portraits are included in this exhibition that presents found photography drawn from the DIA’s and private collections in the U.S. Found photography is considered by museums and collectors as an “accidental” art form created by unknown and often untrained photographers. Rediscovered and recovered from flea and antique markets, online resale sites, in attics, yard sales or even found in the trash, found photography speaks to past eras, people an...
In this exhibition are over forty large-scale color and black-and-white photographs by Kwame Brathwaite. His work helped advance one of the most influential cultural movements of the 1960s, "Black Is Beautiful," when black women and men turned to natural hairstyles and African-inspired clothing. Black Is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite is the first major exhibition dedicated to Brathwaite, a vital figure of the second Harlem Renaissance. Inspired by activist and black n...
The DIA (Detroit Institute of Arts) proudly presents the exhibition, James Barnor: Accra/London—A Retrospective, a comprehensive survey of the work of Ghanaian photographer James Barnor whose career spans more than six decades. A studio portraitist, photojournalist, and Black lifestyle photographer, Barnor was born in 1929 in the West African nation of Ghana. He established his famous Ever Young Studio in Accra in the early 1950s and devoted his early photography to documenting critical soc...
The Detroit Institute of Arts presents a survey of over 90 photographs by Russ Marshall whose black-and-white imagery was inspired by the Motor City’s streets, architecture, music and factory workers for over 50 years. Marshall was born in 1940 in the thriving coal-mining town of South Fork, Pennsylvania to a family of coal miners, farmers and industrial factory workers. His family relocated to Detroit in 1943. By the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, Marshall had begun to phot...
The DIA welcomes Samuel F. B. Morse's painting Gallery of the Louvre as a "guest of honor" from June 16 to September 18, 2016.Gallery of the Louvre is on loan from the Terra Foundation for American Art and also includes Morse's copy of Titian's famous portrait of the French King Francis I, made from the original at the Louvre. The 6.2 x 9-ft. Gallery of the Louvre depicts a gallery imagined by Morse, in which he included 38 miniature versions of what were then the Lou...
Detroit After Dark is a dramatic display of light and dark, a photography exhibition of works from the DIA's permanent collection. Detroit After Dark is free with general museum admission. General museum admission is free for residents of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties. Detroit After Dark includes architectural studies, street scenes and graffiti, as well as some of Detroit’s famous night haunts, like jazz club Baker’s Keyboard Lounge, the legendary Grande Ballroom, an...
In the aftermath of World War II, Ypsilanti-based designer Preston Tucker (Jeff Bridges) was quick to realize that over the four years during which Detroit’s Big Three had forsaken individual automobile production to focus on the war effort, Americans had developed a voracious appetite for new cars. Tucker’s answer was to independently create an innovative “car of the future,” featuring pioneering safety features and modern streamlined styling, including a center-mounted “cyclops” headlight that...
Senegal/1973—directed by Djibril Diop Mambéty | 89 minutes With a stunning mix of the surreal and the naturalistic, Djibril Diop Mambéty paints a vivid, fractured portrait of Senegal in the early 1970s. In this New Wave–influenced fantasy drama, two young lovers long to leave Dakar for the glamour and comforts of France, but their escape plan is beset by complications both concrete and mystical. Characterized by dazzling imagery and music, the alternately manic and meditative Touki B...
USA/2022—directed by Nancy Buirski | 101 minutes A half century after its release, Midnight Cowboy remains one of the ground-breaking movies of the modern era. With electric performances from Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman as loners who join forces out of desperation, blacklist survivor Waldo Salt's brilliant screenplay and John Schlesinger's fearless direction, the 1969 film became the only X-rated release to ever win the Academy Award® for Best Picture. Its vivid yet compassionate d...
In the shadow of the pandemic, a small town rallies to protect a beloved local bookstore in its hour of need. A landmark in Lenox, Massachusetts since 1976, The Bookstore is a magical, beatnik gem thanks to its owner, Matt Tannenbaum, whose passion for stories runs deep. Charming and eccentric, Matt is surrounded by great literature, friendly neighbors and tree-lined streets, in a town where time stood still. Presiding at The Bookstore for over forty years, Matt is a true bard of th...
(USA/1939—directed by Leo C. Popkin) Louise Beavers gives a commanding lead performance as the crusading Mother Barton in this race film long believed to be lost. Beavers plays a probation officer who comes to the defense of young inmate Freddie (Reginald Fenderson) and his pals (the Harlem Tuff Kids) who are subject to constant harassment at a corrupt reform school. The film’s director, Leo Popkin, is one of the three co-founders of the Million Dollar Productions company that produced ...
USA/2024 — dir. Dawn Porter The signer Luther Vandross started his career supporting David Bowie, Roberta Flack, Bette Midler, and many more. He was nicknamed "the Velvet Voice," and despite having multiple platinum albums and top 10 hits, he struggled to break out of the R&B charts. “Considering the stamp he put on the American music industry, it feels strange there hasn’t yet been a documentary about his legacy until Dawn Porter’s Luther: Never Too Much … after experiencing her lov...
USA/2022—directed by Johanna Hamilton and Yoruba Richen | 96 min. Join us for a screening of The Rebellious Life Of Mrs. Rosa Parks, followed by a special conversation moderated by the film’s executive producer Soledad O’Brien, and joined by Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s Secretary of State, Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers, the film’s directors Yoruba Richen and Johanna Hamilton, Dr. Jeanne Theoharis and Lonnie McCauley, Rosa Parks’ grandnephew. The Rebe...
France/2021—directed by Mathieu Amalric | 97 minutes As Clarisse, a woman on the run from her family for reasons that aren’t immediately clear, Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread) brings another riveting characterization to the big screen. Mathieu Amalric (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) is renowned internationally as one of France’s great contemporary actors. With Hold Me Tight (Serre moi fort) – his sixth and most ambitious feature as director – he’ll, at last, be known in America for his...
A searing, indelible, now-classic portrait of anti-colonial struggle in 1970s Africa, Sarah Maldoror’s adaptation of a novella by the Angolan writer José Luandino Vieira was banned by the Angolan government until the country obtained its independence from Portugal in 1975. Sambizanga follows Maria (unforgettably portrayed by Cape Verdean economist Elisa Andrade) as she tries to pick up the pieces after her husband, a secret anti-colonial activist, becomes a political prisoner. Co-written by M...
Join frame historian Tracy Gill, co-founder of New York’s Gill & Lagodich Fine Period Frames, who will discuss the evolution of frame styles over two centuries of American art. Drawing on examples from DIA’s collection, Gill will survey changing tastes from 17th-century painted frames and gilded hand-carved fancies to innovative 19th-century trends and opulent models from the Gilded Age. She will discuss the artist-designed frames on James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s Arrangement in Gr...
Few movie experiences can be as stirring or memorable as a great documentary, and those who might have a little extra time these days will be glad to discover that there’s a superb collection of ten individual non-fiction films and series available on the YouTube platform. The films were produced by Netflix, but those who don’t have a paid subscription to that streaming service will be able to benefit from a new Netflix educational outreach program, allowing you to watch this series of...
A welcome conversation Over the past few months, important discussions in our country have expanded to include the cultural sector overall and art institutions in particular. The DIA has recently become part of this conversation – a conversation that I welcome and encourage. The role of the arts -- the role of the DIA – and its impact on social issues is a topic on which we have focused much energy, time and thought over the past several years and one that deserves even more of ou...
My America I was no older than ten when I first came to America. It was a family trip and we visited New York City, Washington, D.C., and some cities in Florida. I remember the skyscrapers in Manhattan, those long cars called limos, the Spanish spoken in the streets, and the heat shock in Miami when we exited the airport. All were bigger, faster, more charged with energy and, even though I lived in Madrid, I felt like someone from a remote village who, for the first time, had come to a big ci...
Exploring our identity as Detroiters The holiday season is a time when some go home to be with family and friends. We take a trip each year to Spain to see my family and celebrate the New Year. Now that I am a U.S. citizen, I enjoy having two homes, and I am sad when I leave Detroit. Throughout my life, I have been fortunate to travel to different countries. If you think about it, growing up in Spain, one can take a plane to get to France, Italy or Portugal in an hour or so. All these Europea...
Every time I leave my third-floor office and go down to the DIA galleries, I encounter a new adventure, a learning opportunity, a moment of delight, and an empathetic connection with others. Engaging with the collection and sharing it with our friends always brings new insights. During the last decade at the DIA, we have created experiences that help each visitor find personal meaning in art. In the upcoming years, we would like those moments of personal meaning to become shared experiences with...
DFT @ HOME is a virtual screening room that presents new Detroit Film Theatre selections every week, all week, at your convenience. In addition to providing access to the best new international feature films and documentaries as they become available, the DIA will receive revenue from every ticket sold, helping to assure that when the current crisis is over, the DFT’s beloved 1927 auditorium will be ready to greet you again. New this week The Wild Goose Lake (China/France/...
In honor of Robert S. Duncanson Over Labor Day weekend, while I was preparing this newsletter, I read the fascinating life story of the African American 19th century painter, Robert S. Duncanson. I was especially interested in his trip to Europe during the 1860s, to learn the great art of the British, Italian and French masters. Other fellow American artists, like Frederic E. Church, made similar trips during this time. However, in an era where many black Americans were still enslaved, D...
DFT @ HOME is a virtual screening room that presents new Detroit Film Theatre selections every week, all week, at your convenience. In addition to providing access to the best new international feature films and documentaries as they become available, the DIA will receive revenue from every ticket sold, helping to assure that when the current crisis is over, the DFT’s beloved 1927 auditorium will be ready to greet you again. New this week The Booksellers (USA/2019—directed by D.W. You...
An Inside Look Last month, I had the opportunity to take part in a lengthy interview with the publication Antiques and The Arts Weekly, speaking about the museum’s priorities, our financial position, exciting new acquisitions and upcoming exhibitions. Read the full article below, or read on the Antiques and The Arts website here >(opens in new window) Q&A: Salvador Salort-Pons PUBLISHED: OCTOBER 26, 2021 Salvador Salort-Pons has been at the Detroit Ins...
Through exploration of portraiture and self-portraiture across time and cultures in the DIA’s collection, students will understand how artists use pose, symbolism, clothing, facial expression, objects and other details to communicate information about people’s identity in portraits and their place within their culture.
Using Jean-Antoine Houdon’s portraits of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington at the Detroit Institute of Arts, students will explore the life stories of these figures to deepen their understanding of the importance of individual political and social contributions during the American Revolutionary period.
Students call upon their own life experiences and imagination in these drawing activities as they explore what elements can be used to create a still life, portrait, and self-portrait.