Michigan Modern: Design that Shaped America
(Upper Galleries)
Four-Day Symposium: June 13 - 16, 2013
Members’ Only Opening Reception: Thursday, June 13, 2013, 6:30-8:30pm*
Exhibition Dates: June 14, 2013 - October 13, 2013
*If you are not already an ArtMember, memberships can be purchased at the front desk the evening of the event.
In Michigan, industry and design intertwined creating an epicenter of modern design. Michigan’s visionaries touched nearly every aspect of American life. Detroit’s automobile manufacturers didn’t just produce automobiles; they styled them to become synonymous with the American dream. The state’s furniture manufacturers didn’t just manufacture furniture; they revolutionized the look of the American office and home. Michigan architects Albert Kahn, Eero Saarinen, and Minoru Yamasaki didn’t just design buildings; they defined an era.
Michigan’s industry, prosperity, and educational institutions created a synergy that attracted the design talent that formed the foundation for modern American design. This exhibition celebrates Michigan’s outstanding contributions to Modern design and the stories of the people who made it happen.
Michigan Modern: Design that Shaped America is organized by the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office in association with Cranbrook Art Museum and curated by MPdL Studio. A symposium celebrating Michigan Modern will be held at Cranbrook, June 13-16, 2013.
Michigan Modern: Design that Shaped America is supported by the Kresge Foundation, Cranbrook Art Museum and Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research, DeRoy Testamentary Foundation, Alden B. Dow Home and Studio, the McGregor Fund, Herman Miller, Knoll, Eleanor & Edsel Ford House, the Michigan State Historic Preservation Network, the Michigan History Foundation, the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, and Bob Daverman+AIA+LEED-AP – Architect+Designer+Planner.
Wallace Mitchell, Double Pennants, 1949, casein on watercolor board, 20 1/8 x 27 3/8 inches.
Gift of Joan and LeRoy Bence
What to Paint and Why: Modern Painters at Cranbrook, 1936 – 1974
Members’ Only Opening Reception: Thursday, June 13, 2013, 6:30-8:30pm*
Exhibition Dates: Friday, June 14, 2013 through Sunday, March 16, 2014
*If you are not already an ArtMember, memberships can be purchased at the front desk the evening of the event.
At Cranbrook Academy of Art, fundamental questions about painting emerged during the midcentury through the productive tension between the styles of its early painting instructors: Zoltan Sepeshy, a figurative painter, and Wallace Mitchell, an abstractionist. This exhibition mines the dynamic contrast between these two foundational figures in Cranbrook’s history, tracing the effects of their legacy through their own work and that of their students—several of whom went on to careers of national renown.
What to Paint and Why is organized by Cranbrook Art Museum and curated by Chad Alligood, the Art Museum’s 2012-2013 Jeanne and Ralph Graham Collections Fellow. The exhibition is sponsored, in part, by The Clannad Foundation, and is accompanied by a full-color catalogue sponsored Joan and Roy Bence; Sheri and Jonathan Boos; Jeffrey and Holly Mitchell; and Reuel Ruder, Rhine Ruder, and Rhea and Jim Sleeman.
From the Archives: Teaching and Exhibiting Painting at Cranbrook, 1931-1967
Members’ Only Opening Reception: Thursday, June 13, 2013, 6:30-8:30pm*
Exhibition Dates: Friday, June 14, through Sunday, September 29, 2013
*If you are not already an ArtMember, memberships can be purchased at the front desk the evening of the event.
The Cranbrook Academy of Art painting department was instrumental in shaping the artistic lives of hundreds of students through graduate student studio work, public exhibitions, and youth programs. Drawing entirely from the collections of the Cranbrook Archives, this exhibition is comprised of selections of historic photographs, exhibition announcements and catalogs, press releases, and artists’ correspondence. Highlights include the role Cranbrook painters played in the New Deal arts programs in the 1930s and 1940s, creating numerous murals for public buildings throughout Michigan.
Teaching and Exhibiting Painting is curated by Leslie S. Edwards, Head Archivist
A Driving Force: Cranbrook and the Car
Members’ Only Opening Reception: Thursday, June 13, 2013, 6:30-8:30pm*
Exhibition Dates: Friday, June 14, 2013 through Sunday, March 30, 2014
*If you are not already an ArtMember, memberships can be purchased at the front desk the evening of the event.
Automobile innovations such as Detroit’s first V-8 engine and adjustable seats and steering wheels may have been created in the Motor City, but they have something else in common—Cranbrook. A Driving Force: Cranbrook and the Car explores the ways in which Cranbrook has played a role in the automobile industry since the start of the twentieth century, helping to define the ultimate symbol of modern America: the car.
A Driving Force is organized by the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research and curated by Shoshana Resnikoff, the Center's 2012-2014 Collections Fellow.
Sol LeWitt: Wall Drawings 790A and 790B: Irregular Alternating Color Bands
Exhibition Dates: Through March 2014
Hartmann Gallery
Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawings 790A and 790B: Irregular Alternating Color Bands (1995) fill the Hartmann Gallery with serpentine bands of bold color applied directly to the wall. A pioneer of Conceptual Art, LeWitt conceived his wall drawings as a medium through which he could explore the concept of serial permutation while mining the tension between art and architecture. Wall Drawings 790A and 790B, like most of LeWitt’s wall drawings, exist only for the duration of the exhibition before being destroyed, privileging the conception of the work over its physical manifestation and demonstrating the artist’s dictum that “The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.” Still, the physical form of the work retains an undeniable beauty: LeWitt’s sinuous line and fulsome color together serve as an arresting counterpoint to Eliel Saarinen’s airy interior space.
The Islands of Benoît Mandelbrot: Fractals, Chaos, and the Materiality of Thinking
November 16, 2013 – March 30, 2014
Organized by the Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture, New York, and curated by independent curator Nina Samuel
Drawing as Process and Thinking
November 16, 2013 – March 30, 2014
Organized by Cranbrook Art Museum and curated by independent curator Nina Samuel
Waylande Gregory: Art Deco Ceramics and the Atomic Impulse
November 16, 2013 – March 30, 2014
Organized and circulated by the University of Richmond Museums, Virginia, and curated by independent ceramics scholar Dr. Thomas C. Folk
2014 Graduate Degree Exhibition of Cranbrook Academy of Art
ArtMembers' Opening Reception: Saturday, April 19, 2014
Public Exhibition Dates: April 22, 2014 – May 11, 2014
Note: Cranbrook Art Museum will be closed Easter Sunday, April 20, 2014
Organized by Cranbrook Art Museum
Paul Evans: Crossing Boundaries and Crafting Modernism
ArtMembers' Opening Reception: Friday, June 20, 2014
Public Exhibition Dates: June 21, 2014 – October 12, 2014
Note: Cranbrook Art Museum will be closed Wednesday, July 4, 2014
Organized by the James A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, and curated by Constance Kimmerle
Iris Eichenberg
June 21, 2014 – October 12, 2014
Organized by Cranbrook Art Museum
2015 Graduate Degree Exhibition of Cranbrook Academy of Art
April 19, 2015 – May 10, 2015
Organized by Cranbrook Art Museum
