Detroit Institute of Arts debuts reimagined African American art galleries

The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) reveals the grand opening of its reimagined African American art galleries on Sunday, October 18, 2025. The galleries will serve as the new home of the museum’s renowned and unmatched collection of works amassed by its Center for African American Art. The galleries have been freshly reinstalled for the first time since 2007, showcasing new works in the DIA’s collection in concert with existing favorites.

Relocated to the center of the museum, adjacent to the iconic Diego Rivera murals in Rivera Court, the new galleries are part of a larger museum transformation to reimagine its galleries and presentation, and further its impact within the community. Spread out across four galleries, the new spaces offer a refreshed celebration of the creativity, and resilience of Black artists, who created powerful works to express the complexity, trauma, and beauty of their lives, as impacted by their experiences. This new presentation will feature more than 50 works – including paintings, sculpture, prints, photography, and furniture – spanning 150 years (1840-1986) and illuminating a wide range of artists and genres.

“The Detroit Institute of Arts is incredibly proud of its pioneering vision to collect, preserve and showcase African American art,” DIA Director Salvador Salort-Pons said. “With this groundbreaking installation located beside Rivera Court, the heart of the DIA’s art experience, our visitors will have access to this profound collection and be immersed in the rich history of African American art from the early 1800s to 1980s like they have never seen before.”

The collection provides a powerful lens into the achievements and resilience of Black artists, highlighting key historical movements including the Harlem Renaissance, Social Realism, the Civil Rights era, the Black Arts Movement, and expressive uses of color and form in the 1950s to 1980s. Featured artists include Elizabeth Catlett, Thomas Day, Aaron Douglas, Robert S. Duncanson, Sam Gilliam, Felrath Hines, Sargent Claude Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, Hughie Lee-Smith, Mary Edmonia Lewis, Alvin Loving, Allie McGhee, Archibald Motley, Jr., Mavis Iona Pusey, Augusta Savage, Vincent Smith, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Bob Thompson, and Hale Woodruff, among others.

Several artists and their work have direct connections to Detroit including Robert Duncanson, Alvin Loving, Charles McGee, and Allie McGhee. Included in the new galleries is Hughie Lee-Smith’s The Piper, a painting from 1953 that depicts a solitary child on a street in Detroit to symbolize the hope and alienation migrants often felt after moving away from the South during The Great Migration. Also included is a 1967 painting by Allie McGhee, who lives and works in Detroit, titled Black Attack, created in response to the 1967 Detroit Rebellion – one of many nationwide protests against racism and segregation – spotlighting an African American man defending himself from the violence around him.

“Our African American art collection represents some of the most powerful and transformative works in American art history,” Valerie Mercer, Curator & Head, Center for African American Art at the DIA, said. “The new gallery design allows us to better tell the story of African American art and present these works in conversation with each other across time periods, creating a richer context for understanding their significance. We will also be able to display and elevate works from our collection and present them in ways that highlight their artistic innovation and cultural impact. And soon, the DIA’s upcoming reimagined Contemporary Art Galleries will display the ongoing history of the museum’s African American Art collection from 1980 up until today.”

The enhanced accessibility of the galleries is designed to deepen the visitor experience and provide curators with a greater opportunity to display thematic connections across the works on view. The presentation will highlight both historic and contemporary events as well as connections to Detroit and other parts of the country, as well as the broader story of African American artistic creativity over generations.

The DIA began collecting works by African American artists in 1943. The inaugural installation of the DIA’s dedicated African American Art galleries in 2007 and this reimagined reinstallation were organized by the museum’s acclaimed Center for African American Art, established in 2000 as the first curatorial department exclusively devoted to this art at a major American encyclopedic fine art museum. In 2001, the museum appointed its first curator of African American art at an American encyclopedic museum.

Through the work of the Center, the DIA remains committed to increasing awareness of African American contributions to the arts community, and to highlighting African American history, society, and culture. Today, the DIA’s collection of African American art includes approximately 700 works, signaling the museum’s ongoing support and celebration of African American art and history.

The opening of the newly reinstalled African American art galleries represents the completion of the first phase in a larger, planned transformation of the museum’s second floor North Wing. The transformation also includes redesigns of the Modern and Contemporary sections, with each reimagining developed to enhance the visitor experience and allow for recently acquired and not yet displayed new works from the collection to be viewed. The planned completion for the entire transformation is slated for 2026.

More information about the reinstallation, included in the new galleries available at dia.org/events/exhibitions/reimagining-african-american-art.