(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 and distributed films for Black audiences. Its other co-founders were Popkin’s brother Harry and writer-producer-actor Ralph Cooper, “The Dark Gable.”

This screening will be introduced by special guest Rhea Combs, Director of Curatorial Affairs, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and co-curator of Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898–1971 at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. (68 min.) Free with museum admission. 

This program is part of a companion series of film and music events presented in celebration of Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898–1971, on view at the Detroit Institute of Arts Feb. 4–June 23, 2024. Regeneration is organized by the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.  
 

Dr. Dom Flemons is a Chicago-based musician whose repertoire covers 100+ years of American Roots music. Flemons is a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, music scholar, actor, slam poet, record collector, and the host and producer of American Songster Radio Show on WSM in Nashville. He is considered an expert on banjo, guitar, harmonica, jug, percussion, quills, fife, and rhythm bones.

Flemons will perform music from his Grammy-nominated album Traveling Wildfire, and a tribute to the music of Herb Jeffries, The Sensational Singing Cowboy from Detroit, who performed in all-Black musical westerns in the 1930s. Free with admission. 

After the concert there will be a free screening of Jeffries’ 1939 classic, Bronze Buckaroo.  

This program is part of a companion series of film and music events presented in celebration of Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898–1971, on view at the Detroit Institute of Arts Feb. 4–June 23, 2024. Regeneration is organized by the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
 

Create a pencil drawing to take home while taking a closer look at the collection. No experience is necessary. All supplies provided. For ages 6 and up (children ages 12 and younger should be accompanied by an adult).

Create a pencil drawing to take home while taking a closer look at the collection. No experience is necessary. All supplies provided. For ages 6 and up (children ages 12 and younger should be accompanied by an adult).
 

Create a pencil drawing to take home while taking a closer look at the collection. No experience is necessary. All supplies provided. For ages 6 and up (children ages 12 and younger should be accompanied by an adult).
 

Create a pencil drawing to take home while taking a closer look at the collection. No experience is necessary. All supplies provided. For ages 6 and up (children ages 12 and younger should be accompanied by an adult).
 

Create a pencil drawing to take home while taking a closer look at the collection. No experience is necessary. All supplies provided. For ages 6 and up (children ages 12 and younger should be accompanied by an adult).
 

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 Gray: Portrait of the Painter and the monumental landscapes of Frederic Church, as well as the elegant frames designed by architect Stanford White to house paintings owned by Detroit collector Charles Freer. Finally, Gill will explore the early 20th-century transition to handcraftsmanship, when American Impressionist painters were inspired to commission custom frames from Arts and Crafts artisans, and the progression to deceptively simple surrounds conceived by modernists such as Florine Stettheimer, Arthur Dove, and Georgia O’Keeffe, who pushed the boundaries of their canvases and rejected traditional gilded frames in favor of pared-down profiles finished in white, silver, and hand-painted or textured wood. 

Through this talk, attendees will join Gill in looking not just at the paintings, but the art around the art — the art of the frame. 

Special thanks to the Ida and Conrad H. Smith Fund.

The Recognizing Women Project is a monthly community workshop that uses dance, theater, and music to illustrate our stories and experiences of the women in our lives. Join us every first Friday in November, December, and January to discover our common understandings, while co-creating them into a live culminating performance that illustrate the wisdom, power and passion of the women that have touched our lives.  

Who can participate? Daughters, sons, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, great-grandmothers, great-grandfathers… anyone who knows a woman is invited to participate.

How do you participate? Share your stories, experiences, and perspectives through our monthly workshops. 

Want to be a part of the culminating March 22, 2024 performances? Join the January workshop and our rehearsal.

Space is limited and registration is required.

This annual Michigan Philharmonic Miniature Masterpieces program highlights works for the keyboard, including harpsichord and organ.

The program centers around a dramatic J. S. Bach concerto and two pieces from Shruthi Rajasekar, a contemporary Indian American composer and vocalist who explores music that draws from both Carnatic (South Indian classical) and Western classical traditions.

Along with Bach and Rajesekar, Miniature Masterpieces will feature works by Gioachino Rossini and Wilhelmina von Bayreuth, performed by Michigan Philharmonic soloists Angie Zhang (harpsichord and organ), Dennis Carter II (flute) and Yuri Popowycz (violin).