Before 1930, 20 artistsGallery 1
Portraits, marine views and the first art schools. Many of these artists trained in Paris, Munich or Düsseldorf, and several came back to teach in Detroit.
Robert S. Duncanson
Blue Hole, Flood Waters, Little Miami River, 1851. Cincinnati Art Museumc. 1821–1872, Monroe and Detroit
Frederick Stuart Church
The Viking's Daughter. Smithsonian American Art Museum1842–1924, Grand Rapids
Julius Rolshoven
Dilettante. El Paso Museum of Art1858–1930, Detroit
Gari Melchers
Vespers. Saint Louis Art Museum1860–1932, Detroit
Mathias J. Alten
The Gravel Pit, 19091871–1938, Grand Rapids and West Michigan
Frederick Carl Frieseke
Girl in Blue Arranging Flowers1874–1939, Owosso
John Mix Stanley
Buffalo Hunt on the Southwestern Prairies, 1845. Smithsonian American Art Museum1814–1872, Detroit
Lewis T. Ives
Mrs. John J. Bagley. Detroit Institute of Arts1833–1894, Detroit
Percy Ives
Walt Whitman. Library of Congress1864–1928, Detroit
Francis Petrus Paulus
Santa Maria della Salute, Venice1862–1933, Detroit
Myron G. Barlow
Poisson rose (Pink Fish)1870–1937, Ionia and DetroitRobert Hopkin
1832–1909, Detroit. Oil and watercolor, marine views and decorationDetroit's marine painter, and the reason the city's Scarab Club exists.Mary Chase Perry Stratton
1867–1961, Hancock and Detroit. Ceramics, architectural tile and iridescent glazeBorn in the Upper Peninsula, she co-founded Pewabic Pottery and put its glazes into landmark buildings.Alvah Bradish
1806–1901, Detroit and Ann Arbor. Portrait paintingA portraitist who painted early Michigan's leaders and taught fine arts at the University of Michigan.Julius T. Melchers
1829–1908, Detroit. Sculpture and architectural carvingDescribed as Detroit's first sculptor, he carved the city's founders in sandstone and fathered Gari Melchers.Alice Viola Guysi
1863–1940, Detroit. Painting, pastel and miniaturesAs Detroit's public schools' director of art, she shaped art education in the city for decades.Jeanette Guysi
1873–1966, Detroit. Painting and art educationA Paris-trained painter who became principal of the Detroit Museum School of Art.Roy Charles Gamble
1887–1972, Detroit. Oil portraiture and muralsA lifelong Detroiter who painted Ty Cobb, Michigan's justices and the city's public figures.Alfred Hutty
1877–1954, Grand Haven. Etching, drypoint and landscape paintingBorn in Grand Haven, he became a leading printmaker of the Charleston Renaissance.Géza Maróti
1875–1941, Bloomfield Hills. Carved stone and architectural sculptureA Hungarian architect and sculptor whose carved overmantel remains a Cranbrook landmark.1930 to 1980, 35 artistsGallery 2
Cranbrook's studios, the Society of Arts and Crafts, New Deal murals, and photographers who left Detroit's factories to change their field.
Loja Saarinen
1879–1968, Bloomfield Hills. Weaving, rugs and textile designThe weaver and entrepreneur who helped define what Cranbrook became.Carl Milles
1875–1955, Bloomfield Hills. Sculpture and fountainsSweden's foremost sculptor spent two decades at Cranbrook and filled its campus with his work.Maija Grotell
1899–1973, Bloomfield Hills. Wheel-thrown stoneware and high-fire glazeShe led ceramics at Cranbrook for 28 years, and her glazes helped carry clay into modern architecture.Harry Bertoia
1915–1978, Detroit and Bloomfield Hills. Metal sculpture, jewelry and monotypeA Cass Tech and Cranbrook product whose metalwork ran from jewelry to sounding sculpture.Marshall M. Fredericks
1908–1998, Royal Oak and Saginaw. Bronze and public sculptureThe sculptor behind The Spirit of Detroit, with a whole museum of his work in Saginaw.Corrado Parducci
1900–1981, Detroit. Architectural sculpture in stone, bronze and plasterIf you have looked up at a great Detroit building, you have probably seen his work.Hughie Lee-Smith
1915–1999, Detroit. Oil painting and lithographyHis dreamlike, empty cityscapes took shape during nearly two decades in Detroit.Zoltan Sepeshy
1898–1974, Bloomfield Hills. Egg tempera paintingAn internationally known master of egg tempera who led Cranbrook Academy for two decades.Samuel Cashwan
1900–1988, Detroit and East Lansing. Sculpture and bas-reliefHe led Michigan's WPA sculpture program, and his reliefs still mark the state's public buildings.Waylande Gregory
1905–1971, Bloomfield Hills. Ceramic sculptureA ceramic sculptor whose brief Cranbrook residency ended when a bank holiday shut off the kilns.Avard Fairbanks
1897–1987, Ann Arbor. Bronze and stone sculptureA sculptor who studied anatomy to improve his figures while teaching at the University of Michigan.John Carroll
1892–1959, Detroit. Modernist portrait paintingA Guggenheim-winning modernist who led painting at Detroit's Society of Arts and Crafts.Carlos Lopez
1908–1953, Detroit, Ann Arbor and Birmingham. Painting and tempera muralsA Cuban-born muralist whose New Deal scenes remain in Michigan post offices.Edgar Yaeger
1904–1997, Detroit. Modernist painting and muralsA Detroit modernist known for Depression-era murals in Michigan's public buildings.Steve "Pablo" Davis
1916–2013, Detroit and Ann Arbor. Painting and community muralsThe last living member of Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry team, he kept painting murals in Southwest Detroit.LeRoy Foster
1925–1993, Detroit. Painting and muralsA lifelong Detroiter whose murals celebrated Frederick Douglass, Paul Robeson and the city itself.Marianne Strengell
1909–1998, Bloomfield Hills. Weaving and textile designShe took over Cranbrook's weaving program and helped bring handwoven pattern into industry.Ruth Adler Schnee
1923–2023, Detroit. Silk-screened textiles and interiorsA refugee from Nazi Germany who became one of Detroit's defining modern textile designers.Harvey Littleton
1922–2013, Ann Arbor and Bloomfield Hills. Glass and ceramicsThe father of American studio glass trained in Michigan before launching the movement in 1962.Toshiko Takaezu
1922–2011, Bloomfield Hills. Closed ceramic formsA Cranbrook-trained ceramist whose closed forms hide rattling clay inside.Leza McVey
1907–1984, Bloomfield Hills. Hand-built ceramicsA Cleveland ceramist whose Cranbrook years connected her to Grotell and Takaezu.Richard DeVore
1933–2006, Bloomfield Hills. StonewareGrotell's student and successor at Cranbrook, known for quiet vessels that resemble stone or bone.Jack Lenor Larsen
1927–2020, Bloomfield Hills. Textile designA Cranbrook graduate who went on to build one of America's great textile houses.Olga de Amaral
born 1932, Bloomfield Hills. Fiber art and gold leafThe Colombian fiber artist studied at Cranbrook in the 1950s before transforming woven walls.Fred Mitchell
1923–2013, Bloomfield Hills. Abstract Expressionist paintingA Cranbrook graduate and teacher who helped found New York's Tanager Gallery.Tony Rosenthal
1914–2009, Ann Arbor and Bloomfield Hills. Large outdoor geometric sculptureA Michigan graduate and Milles student whose cube Endover still turns in Ann Arbor.Duane Hanson
1925–1996, Bloomfield Hills. Resin, fiberglass and bronze figuresA Cranbrook graduate whose startlingly lifelike figures can fool you from across the room.Harry Callahan
1912–1999, Detroit. Black-and-white and color photographyA Chrysler clerk from Detroit who joined the company camera club and became a giant of American photography.Arthur Siegel
1913–1978, Detroit. Photojournalism and experimental colorA Detroit-raised photographer who took New Bauhaus ideas into photojournalism and teaching.Ed Emshwiller
1925–1990, Lansing and Ann Arbor. Science fiction illustration and experimental filmA Lansing native whose Hugo-winning covers led to pioneering film and computer animation.Kreigh Collins
1908–1974, Ada and Grand Rapids. Comics, illustration and paintingAn Alten protégé from Ada who drew Mitzi McCoy and Kevin the Bold for Sunday newspapers.Robert Thom
1915–1979, Grand Rapids and Alma. Historical painting and illustrationA Grand Rapids native who painted the history of medicine and pharmacy for Parke-Davis.Reynold Weidenaar
1915–1985, Grand Rapids. Mezzotint, etching, watercolor and frescoThe "Dutch Master of Grand Rapids" recorded the building of the Mackinac Bridge in mezzotint.Armand Merizon
1920–2010, Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids. PaintingA Grand Rapids painter who kept working from memory after losing his sight.Gerome Kamrowski
1914–2004, Ann Arbor. Painting, sculpture and mosaicA longtime University of Michigan professor who once shared a canvas with Pollock and Baziotes.1980 to today, 45 artistsGallery 3
The Cass Corridor, the Grande Ballroom's posters, the Heidelberg Project, and black ash baskets that carry a Great Lakes tradition forward.
Charles McGee
1924–2021, Detroit. Painting, assemblage and public sculptureHe spent decades making art in Detroit and helping build the institutions that supported it.Al Loving
1935–2005, Detroit and Ann Arbor. Painting, dyed fabric and collageA Detroit native who went from hard-edge geometry to loose, dyed fabric.Bill Rauhauser
1918–2017, Detroit. Street and documentary photographyDetroit's great street photographer, and a teacher to generations who followed him.Gilda Snowden
1954–2014, Detroit. Painting, encaustic and charcoal rubbingA painter and mentor who turned Detroit gardens, manhole covers and family history into vivid abstraction.Mike Kelley
1954–2012, Detroit and Westland. Installation, sculpture, drawing and videoOne of the most influential artists of his time, he rebuilt his Westland childhood home in Detroit.Tyree Guyton
born 1955, Detroit. Outdoor installation and paintingSince 1986 he has turned the street where he grew up into the Heidelberg Project.Allie McGhee
born 1941, Detroit. Painting and sculpture with industrial paintA fixture of Detroit art since the 1960s, known for paintings he physically crushes into new forms.Mario Moore
born 1987, Detroit. Large-scale figurative paintingA Detroit realist whose steady-eyed figures connect past and present.Kelly Church
Contemporary, Hopkins. Black ash basketry and birch bark bitingA fifth-generation basket maker, weaving tradition and alarm about the loss of Michigan's black ash.Yvonne Walker Keshick
born 1946, Petoskey. Porcupine quillwork on birch barkAn Odawa master of quillwork whose boxes carry a Great Lakes art form forward.Paul Collins
born 1934, Muskegon and Grand Rapids. Realist oil painting and muralsA Muskegon-born realist whose portrait series have taken him from Senegal to Grand Rapids airport.Shirley Woodson
Contemporary, Detroit. Painting, collage and assemblageA painter and teacher who has shaped generations of Detroit artists.Brenda Goodman
born 1943, Detroit. Painting and works on paperA Cass Corridor original whose self-portraits are among the most intense in modern painting.Ellen Phelan
born 1943, Detroit. PaintingA founder of Detroit's Willis Gallery who went on to paint dolls and landscapes in New York.Nancy Mitchnick
born 1947, Detroit. PaintingA Cass Corridor painter who returned from New York and Harvard to paint Detroit again.Gordon Newton
1948–2019, Port Huron and Detroit. Visual and interdisciplinary artA central figure of the Cass Corridor, shown from the Willis Gallery to the Guggenheim.Michael Luchs
1938–2021, Detroit. Painting and sculptureA Cass Corridor artist whose rabbit images earned a MOCAD show late in his career.Robert Sestok
Contemporary, Detroit. Welded steel sculptureA Cass Corridor sculptor who turned empty Detroit lots into City Sculpture.Ann Mikolowski
1940–1999, Detroit, Grindstone City and Ann Arbor. Miniature portraits, waterscapes and printmakingShe painted tiny portraits and huge Lake Huron waters, and co-founded The Alternative Press.Jim Pallas
born 1941, Detroit. Electronic and kinetic sculptureA Detroit artist who wired sculpture to respond to its surroundings long before that was common.Gary Grimshaw
1946–2014, Detroit and Lincoln Park. Rock posters and graphic artThe poster artist of Detroit's Grande Ballroom and the MC5 era.Carl Lundgren
born 1947, Detroit. Rock posters and fantasy illustrationA Detroit-born poster artist of the Grande era who went on to paint nearly 300 book covers.Stanley Mouse
born 1940, Detroit. Airbrush art, posters and album coversDetroit's hot-rod airbrush kid became a defining artist of San Francisco psychedelia.Chris Van Allsburg
born 1949, Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor. Picture books and illustrationA Grand Rapids native who trained as a sculptor at Michigan and created The Polar Express.Jim Shaw
born 1952, Ann Arbor. Painting, drawing and installationA University of Michigan graduate and Destroy All Monsters co-founder who collects thrift-store art.Niagara
born 1955, Detroit. Acrylic paintingThe Destroy All Monsters singer paints bold, comic-inflected femmes fatales.Cary Loren
Contemporary, Oak Park. Photography, zines and writingA Destroy All Monsters co-founder, Polaroid photographer and owner of The Book Beat.Nick Cave
born 1959, Bloomfield Hills. Soundsuits, sculpture and performanceThe Soundsuit artist earned his MFA at Cranbrook.Sonya Clark
born 1967, Bloomfield Hills and Grand Rapids. Fiber art with hair, combs and beadsA Cranbrook graduate who won ArtPrize in Grand Rapids in 2014.Anne Wilson
born 1949, Detroit. Sculpture and fiber-based mediaA Detroit-born artist who turns lace, linen and hair into sculpture and performance.Beverly Fishman
born 1955, Bloomfield Hills. Painting, relief and cast glassFor 27 years she led painting at Cranbrook while making work about medicine and the body.John Glick
1938–2017, Detroit and Farmington Hills. Functional pottery and wall panelsFor more than 50 years he ran Plum Tree Pottery in Farmington Hills.Olayami Dabls
Contemporary, Detroit. Outdoor installation and placemakingHe turned two Detroit blocks into the MBAD African Bead Museum.Scott Hocking
Contemporary, Redford and Detroit. Site-specific sculpture and photographyHe raised a ziggurat inside the abandoned Fisher Body 21 plant.Hubert Massey
born 1958, Flint and Detroit. Buon fresco, terrazzo and stained glassA Flint-born muralist who learned true fresco from Diego Rivera's former apprentices.Carole Harris
born 1943, Detroit. Improvisational art quiltsA lifelong Detroiter whose jazz-inflected quilts break out of the rectangle.Michelle Andonian
born 1958, Detroit. Documentary photographyA Detroit documentary photographer whose subjects run from auto plants to post-earthquake Armenia.Russ Marshall
born 1940, Detroit. Black-and-white street photographyA half-century of Detroit's streets and factories, shown at the DIA in 2020.Dave Jordano
born 1948, Detroit. Documentary photographyA Detroit-born photographer who returned to document the city in Detroit: Unbroken Down.Corine Vermeulen
born 1977, Detroit. Documentary photography and portraitureA Dutch-born Cranbrook graduate who photographs the Detroit that residents are building.Susan Goethel Campbell
born 1956, Grand Rapids and Detroit. Printmaking, artists' books and videoA Cranbrook-trained printmaker who studies how people have changed land and sky.Sabrina Nelson
born 1967, Detroit. Visual and interdisciplinary artA self-described visual witness who has mentored young Detroit artists for decades.Rashaun Rucker
Contemporary, Detroit. Drawing, printmaking and photographyA prizewinning photojournalist turned artist, whose drawings and prints carry titles like Cooped Up and Eastside Aviary.Tylonn J. Sawyer
Contemporary, Detroit. Figurative painting and drawingA Detroit figurative painter who interrogates race, history and identity.Cherish Parrish
born 1989, Hopkins. Black ash basketryA sixth-generation weaver whose baskets carry her mother's tradition forward.No artists match. Clear the search or choose all media.