Portrait of William Wickham Mills Smith, 1849
William Sidney Mount, American, 1807 - 1868
oil on canvas
oil on canvas
albumen print from a collodion negative mounted to board
gelatin silver print mounted to dark grey board
gelatin silver print
graphite pencil on cream laid paper
etching printed in black ink on wove paper
oil on canvas
glazed clay
cyanotype mounted to paper envelope
glass negative
daguerreotype
ambrotype
daguerreotype
oil on canvas
color lithograph
oil on canvas
oil on artist board, mounted to wood panel
terracotta
woodcut printed in black ink on wove paper
gelatin silver print
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...
DIA Studio staff will help you snap a portrait with an instant film camera then use a variety of art-making materials, including beads, markers and collage papers, to decorate a 5-by-7 inch frame made from corrugated cardboard. Presented in conjunction with the exhibition James Barnor: Accra/London, on view through October 15.
Join Ypsilanti-based artist Jessy Butts for an opportunity to create a shrinky dink key chain or ornament of your own design! Drop-in to the Art Making Studio, draw a portrait and watch your artwork shrink to a third of its size and become 9 times thicker with this fun nostalgic material. This program is made possible by the PNC Foundation.
Join Detroit photographer Elonte Davis as he shares techniques, inspirations, and information on upcoming events and exhibitions with visitors. All participants will also create a polaroid portrait mixed media collage using a variety of art making materials like decorative papers, magazines, paint markers, and more. This program is made possible by the PNC Foundation.
Join Michigan Poet Laureate, Nandi Comer, and InsideOut Literary Arts for a creative writing workshop inspired by the photos of James Barnor. Participants will discuss and explore a variety of writing forms and techniques and find entry points and inspiration in an array of portraits that deepen connection to the social and political context of the exhibit. NANDI COMER is the Poet Laureate of Michigan. She is the author of two poetry collections, American Family: A Syndrome and Tapping Out. S...
(Mexico/France/2023—directed by Lila Avilés) Seven-year-old Sol (Naíma Sentíes) is helping her aunts prepare for her father’s surprise birthday party. As the house becomes increasingly boisterous, her father’s mysterious absence grows more and more concerning. “There isn’t a false note in the tender Mexican drama Tótem With intricate staging and camerawork, and an expressionistically warm palette — along with charming appearances from the natural world — writer-d...
Iran/2023—directed by Ali Asgari and Alireza Khatami | 77 min. Through a series of stirring vignettes, often humorous and always affecting, Iranian directors Asgari and Khatami follow people from all walks of life in contemporary Tehran. As they navigate cultural, religious, and institutional constraints, this audacious film captures the spirit and determination of people facing daily adversity, while offering a nuanced portrait of a complex society. The sole Iranian film selected by th...
USA/2022—directed by Harold Crooks and Judd Tully | 93 min. The Melt Goes On Forever chronicles the singular career of the elusive African-American art star David Hammons, from Watts rebellion era ’60s L.A. to global art world prominence today. Hammons’ category-defying practice–rooted in a deep critique of American society and the elite art world–is in the words of one art critic “an invitation to confront the fissures between races” as the artist seeks to go beyond the dominant culture and ...
Directed by Manuela Martelli / 2022 In this much-awarded movie, all seems fine in the comfortable Chilean bourgeois world of Carmen (played by Aline Kuppenheim) and her family. She has a summer house she’s renovating, and performs charitable works through her church. But when the family priest asks her to take care of an injured young man he has been sheltering in secret, Carmen is unwittingly drawn into the world of Chilean politics—with potentially disastrous consequences for her family. ...
China/2022 | Dir. Li Ruijun Two middle-aged people—Cao, a timid, frail woman and Ma, an unassuming farmer—are pushed into an arranged marriage in the poor rural province of Gaotai in northern China. Ma has little to offer beyond a small house and some barren land, but he’s a patient, skilled farmer, and over time their garden begins to thrive, as does their relationship, until their peaceful existence is threatened by encroaching urbanization, as the local government begins incentivizing land...
(Germany/2023—directed by Jialing Zhang) For decades, China has been monitoring its citizens using high-tech security and surveillance. In this fascinating documentary, Jialing Zhang (co-director of One Child Nation) immerses us in the daily reality of half a billion cameras pointed at people as they go about their daily lives, invasive neighborhood watch programs, employees monitored for stress levels, and a ”social credit” point system that has rewards for community service and penal...
Learning about history from art A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity and honor to speak at the Livonia Town Hall Lecture Series. Over 400 members of our communities, many of them seniors from Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties, welcomed me warmly – one even placed a flower on my lapel before I stepped onto the podium. As I normally do, I started by explaining the reasons I came to Detroit and the many things I have learned during the 11 years I have lived with my family in Michig...
Conservation on display During the years I served as a DIA curator, I spent much time doing research in our conservation department. Exploring artwork under a microscope, discovering the elemental composition of pigments used during the Renaissance, and examining paintings with the help of X-radiography, raking or ultraviolet light were and still are some of my favorite activities. Not many people know that the DIA is not only one of the best museums in the country, but also one that is eq...
The importance of empty piazzas Early in March, I was in Mount Clemens leading a tour of some DIA painting reproductions installed there for residents of Macomb County. It was a fun crowd to be with and I had the opportunity to speak about one of my favorite works in our collection: Canaletto’s Piazza di San Marco. The image shows one of the most famous town squares in the world, located in Venice (Italy), during a sunny winter morning. Scattered throughout the civic space one can observ...
Reopening your DIA Dear Friends, This Friday, July 10, we will reopen the DIA for our members and tri-county residents and on July 15 to the general public. We wanted to do it this way to signal how grateful we are to Macomb, Wayne and Oakland counties for their recent millage renewal on March 10. Our re-opening team has done an extraordinary job putting together a plan with NSF International. We will have the necessary protocols in place with the highest standards so our workplace a...
Fulfilling our mission I could not start this monthly letter without expressing how terribly saddened I am by the events Detroit and the nation have seen during the last week. At the DIA, we stand in solidarity with the people of Detroit and those around the world appealing for an end to racism, inequality, brutality and fear. The Detroit Institute of Arts commits to serving as a place of inclusion, diversity and equity for everyone in our community and beyond. We believe in th...
The impact of the DIA In 2015 when I became the DIA director, I started to travel in Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties to any public place that would give me a microphone and an audience to speak to. I believed (and I still do) that it was necessary for everyone to be aware not only of the great art treasures that we keep in public trust, but also the extraordinary focus that our team places on our visitors and their experiences in the museum. I met many individuals from our tri-counties who...
Kermit at the DIA A couple of months ago, during our standing Tuesday Strategy Group meeting, where all the division heads gather to establish our chief lines of action, one of my colleagues announced that Kermit The Frog and Howdy Doody were going to go on display in our puppet case. I was familiar with the latter, but I had never heard the word Kermit in my life. So one of my colleagues pulled out her phone and showed me who Kermit was. Oh! I said, that is La Rana Gustavo (Kermit the ...
Starting the next chapter A couple of weeks ago my wife, Alex, drove our daughter Piper to New York City, where she is starting college this week. While they were traveling, I spent a good amount of time thinking about the current year, the upcoming one, and the opportunities we have ahead of us. With the school year just started, one looks back at 2020 and has the impression that much of the time was devoted to managing a world health crisis and how we have adapted to it. Let’s not forget, h...
Conservation Science After a short and very much enjoyed holiday break, I returned to work last week and started to catch up with our very exciting initiatives for 2020. I also had lunch with one of our patrons, who is a keen art collector and a very committed DIA supporter of our education work. He just got back from London where he saw beautiful art shows at the British Museum, National Gallery, and the Victoria and Albert Museum among other institutions. We had a very animated conversation...
An unexpected time Over the last couple of days Tony Drake, DIA volunteer manager, has shared with me a number of images showing many of our volunteers as DIA visitors enjoying our galleries. During the last months, I have seen Tony walking around the museum with his camera taking pictures of our staff on-site to keep us engaged and upbeat during these challenging times. His friendly photos of our visiting volunteers are accompanied by a DIA floor plan indicating the location in which they we...
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.