Detroit Institute of Arts

The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation and expansion project completed in 2007 that added . The DIA collection is regarded as among the top six museums in the United States with an encyclopedic collection which spans the globe from ancient Egyptian and European works to contemporary art. Its art collection is valued in billions of dollars, up to $8.1 billion USD according to a 2014 appraisal. The DIA campus is located in Detroit's Cultural Center Historic District, about north of the downtown area, across from the Detroit Public Library near Wayne State University.

The museum building is highly regarded by architects. The original building, designed by Paul Philippe Cret, is flanked by north and south wings with the white marble as the main exterior material for the entire structure. The campus is part of the city's Cultural Center Historic District listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The museum's first painting was donated in 1883 and its collection consists of over 65,000 works. With about 677,500 visitors annually for 2015, the DIA is among the most visited art museums in the world. The Detroit Institute of Arts hosts major art exhibitions; it contains a 1,150-seat theatre designed by architect C. Howard Crane, a 380-seat hall for recitals and lectures, an art reference library, and a conservation services laboratory.

Collections

The museum contains 100 galleries of art from around the world. Diego Rivera's ''Detroit Industry'' cycle of frescoes span the upper and lower levels to surround the central grand marble court of the museum. The armor collection of William Randolph Hearst lines the main hall entry way to the grand court.
The collection of American art at the DIA is one of the most impressive, and officials at the DIA have ranked the American paintings collection third among museums in the United States. Works by American artists began to be collected immediately following the museum's founding in 1883. Today the collection is a strong survey of American history, with acknowledged masterpieces of painting, sculpture, furniture and decorative arts from the 18th century, 19th century, and 20th century, with contemporary American art in all media also being collected. The breadth of the collection includes such American artists as John James Audubon, George Bellows, George Caleb Bingham, Alexander Calder, Mary Cassatt, Dale Chihuly, Frederic Edwin Church, Thomas Cole, John Singleton Copley, Robert Colescott, Leon Dabo, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Thomas Eakins, Childe Hassam, Robert Henri, Winslow Homer, George Inness, Martin Lewis, Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles Willson Peale, Rembrandt Peale, Tom Phardel, Duncan Phyfe, Hiram Powers, Sharon Que, Frederic Remington, Paul Revere, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, John Singer Sargent, John French Sloan, Tony Smith, Marylyn Dintenfass, Gilbert Stuart, Yves Tanguy, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Andy Warhol, William T. Williams, Anne Wilson, Andrew Wyeth, and James McNeill Whistler.

The early 20th century was a period of prolific collecting for the museum, which acquired such works as a dragon tile relief from the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, an Egyptian relief of Mourning Women and a statuette of a Seated Scribe, Pieter Bruegel the Elder's ''The Wedding Dance'', '' Saint Jerome in His Study'' by Jan van Eyck and Giovanni Bellini's ''Madonna and Child''. Early purchases included French paintings by Claude Monet, Odilon Redon, Eugène Boudin, and Edgar Degas, as well as Old Masters including Gerard ter Borch, Peter Paul Rubens, Albrecht Dürer and Rembrandt van Rijn. The museum includes works by Vincent van Gogh including a self-portrait. The self-portrait of Vincent van Gogh and ''The Window'' by Henri Matisse were purchased in 1922 and were the first paintings by these two artists to enter an American public collection. Later important acquisitions include Hans Holbein the Younger's ''Portrait of a Woman'', James Abbott McNeill Whistler's '' Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket'', and works by Paul Cézanne, Eugène Delacroix, Auguste Rodin, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux and François Rude. German Expressionism was embraced and collected early on by the DIA, with works by Heinrich Campendonk, Franz Marc, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Max Beckmann, Karl Hofer, Emil Nolde, Lovis Corinth, Ernst Barlach, Georg Kolbe, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paula Modersohn-Becker, and Max Pechstein in the collection. Non-German artists in the Expressionist movement include Oskar Kokoschka, Wassily Kandinsky, Chaïm Soutine and Edvard Munch. ''The Nut Gatherers'' by William-Adolphe Bouguereau is, by some accounts, the most popular painting in the collection.

In addition to the American and European works listed above, the collections of the Detroit Institute of Arts are generally encyclopedic and extensive, including ancient Greek, Roman, Etruscan, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian material, as well as a wide range of Islamic, African and Asian art of all media.

In December 2010, the museum debuted a new permanent gallery with special collections of hand, shadow, and string puppets along with programmable lighting and original backgrounds. The museum plans to feature puppet related events and rotation of exhibits drawn from its puppet collections.

List of exhibitions

Artists’ Take on Detroit: Projects for the Tricentennial (October 19, 2001 – December 28, 2001)
This exhibit celebrates Detroit's 300th anniversary by creating 10 projects that represent the city. The installations created by 15 artists include video and still photography, text and sound, and sculptures. This exhibit includes the following:
Altar Mary by Petah Coyne, Strange Früt: Rock Apocrypha by Destroy All Monsters Collective, Traces of Then and Now by Lorella Di Cintio and Jonsara Ruth, Fast Forward, Play Back by Ronit Eisenbach and Peter Sparling, Riches of Detroit: Faces of Detroit by Deborah Grotfeldt and Tricia Ward, Open House by Tyree Guyton, A Persistence of Memory by Michael Hall, Relics by Scott Hocking and Clinton Snider, Blackout by Mike Kelley, Voyageurs by Joseph Wesner.

Art in Focus: Celadons (January 16 – April 14)
Green-glazed ceramics, also known as celadon ware, created by Suzuki Sansei are on display in each of the Asian galleries.

Over the Line: The Art and Life of Jacob Lawrence (February 24, 2002 – May 19, 2002)
The exhibit contains work of the African American artist Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000), and includes never before seen pieces from the ''Migration'' and the ''John Brown'' series.

Degas and the Dance (October 20, 2002 – January 12, 2003)
This exhibit includes more than 100 pieces of work created by Edgar Degas. These pieces include model stage sets, costume designs, and photographs of the dancers from the 19th-century Parisian ballet.

Magnificenza! The Medici, Michelangelo and The Art of Late Renaissance Florence (March 16, 2003 – June 8, 2003)
The exhibit displays art of the cultural successes of the first four Medici grand dukes of Tuscany during 1537–1631, along with their connection with Michelangelo and his art in the Late Renaissance Florence.

When Tradition Changed: Modernist Masterpieces at the DIA (June 2003 – August 2003)
This exhibit only contains pieces from the DIA's collection from the late 19th-century and early 20th-century and displays the different choices artists expressed themselves after 1900.

Then and Now: A selection of 19th- and 20th-Century Art by African American Artists (July 2003 – August 2003)
Roughly 40 objects in this exhibit, organized by the General Motors Center for African American Art, display the artistic styles of African American artists during the past two hundred years. This exhibit includes work from Joshua Johnson, Robert Scott Duncanson, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Augusta Savage, Benny Andrews, Betye Saar, Richard Hunt, Sam Gilliam, and Lorna Simpson. Allie McGhee, Naomi Dickerson, Lester Johnson, Shirley Woodson

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases