Untitled (portrait of a woman in a white hat and dress holding a handbag), ca. 1940
American
gelatin silver print
gelatin silver print
gelatin silver print
graphite pencil on off-white wove paper
etching printed in black ink on laid paper
gelatin silver print
gelatin silver print
gelatin silver print
oil on canvas
gelatin silver print with hand coloring
gelatin silver print with hand coloring
opaque watercolor, gold, and ink on paper
silver
oil on canvas
original plaster cast
engraving printed in black ink on laid paper
engraving printed in black ink on laid paper
engraving printed in black ink on laid paper
engraving printed in black ink on laid paper
engraving printed in black ink on laid paper
engraving printed in black ink on laid paper
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...
UK/2021—directed by Mark Cousins | 167 minutes “What sets it soaring is the discerning guide at its helm, one whose curatorial exultation and rigor are also calming and reassuring - a welcome voice in cacophonous times.” -Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter A decade after The Story of Film: An Odyssey, his brilliant documentary about the state of moviemaking in the 20th century, filmmaker and author Mark Cousins returns with an epic portrait of cinematic innovation from ar...
France/Italy/Germany/2022—directed by Pietro Marcello | 103 minutes Pietro Marcello, one of contemporary cinema’s most versatile directorial talents, follows his 2019 breakthrough Martin Eden (shown virtually by the DFT during the 2020 lockdown) with this entertaining period fable based on a beloved 1923 novel by Russian author Alexander Grin. Beginning as the tale of a sensitive brute (Räphael Terry) who returns from World War I to his rural French village, only to discover that his wi...
Inspired by the themes of this year’s Mighty Real Queer Detroit biennial, I’ll Be Your Mirror: Reflections of the Contemporary Queer, is a program of LGBTQ+ documentary shorts curated by filmmaker Adam Baran. Drawn from films produced during the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ll Be Your Mirror assembles an intergenerational portrait of queer lives in these increasingly perilous times. You’ll visit the sites of early rights rebellions in Los Angeles and San Francisco, experience a punk rock fairytale in...
Italy/2019-directed by Mimmo Calopresti | 87 minutes In 1951, in Africo, a small village in the southern valley of Aspromonte, a woman dies in childbirth because a doctor fails to arrive on time. No road connects Africo with other villages. In the wake of this tragedy, all of the inhabitants put aside their work and unite to build their own road. Giulia (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi), the new school teacher arrived from the North, has another mission: to teach standard Italian to the local ch...
They work with wood, with paint, with their imaginations. Whatever the approach, the unforgettable personalities featured in these six short documentaries make indelible impacts on the world by following their own paths – and their own creative instincts. Out of the Woodwork In northern Michigan, sawyer Dan Baker is obsessed with wood and the state's forests. But his preoccupation comes with a cost. Directed by Brody Kuhar. (2022) Senghor Reid: Make Way for Tomorrow Discover the evoc...
Whether we’re arguing over media bias, fighting for a favorite politician, or battling over social injustices, it often feels as if America – indeed the world – is a nearly constant state of conflict. And it seems the friction has only risen in recent years. In their own ways, each of these shorts explore how we’ve reached a place of strife and disunity, and what it feels like to live amidst the tumult. Jade Helm In 2015, the U.S. military conducted routine training across the American Sou...
Please join the Friends of Modern and Contemporary Art for our Annual Meeting from 5:30–6 p.m. At 6 p.m., guest artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons will give a lecture on her work, which is free with registration. The lecture will be followed by an exclusive FMCA Member reception in FJC Dining Rooms A&B. María Magdalena Campos-Pons combines and crosses diverse artistic practices, including photography, painting, sculpture, film, video, and performance. Her work addresses issues ...
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.