May

Where in the World is Academy Graduation?

Today was a very exciting day at Cranbrook, with the Academy of Art Commencement taking place underneath a bright blue sky at Thompson Oval. Sixty-four students (now alumni!) were awarded their degrees. Artis Lane received an Honorary Master of Fine Arts and delivered an inspiring speech (on her 94^th birthday, no less!), while Allie McGhee delivered a wonderful commencement address.

Susan Ewing, Director, speaking at the Cranbrook Academy of Art Class of 2021 Commencement, May 14, 2021 on the Thompson Oval at Cranbrook School. Photograph by Katie McGowan, CAA Photography ’22, Courtesy Cranbrook Academy of Art.

But as I sat in the newly restored bleachers of the Cranbrook School football stadium, I wondered: was this the first time the Academy’s commencement took place here, at the Thompson Oval?

A quick search in Archives revealed that, yes, it seemed to be. However, the same search revealed that graduation has taken place all around campus over the years.

The Academy dates back to 1932, but it first granted degrees in 1942. This was the same time Cranbrook Art Museum and Library opened. Early commencements took place in the Museum galleries, and, at least in the earliest years, the faculty and staff wore academic regalia.

Eliel Saarinen, President, confers degrees during the Cranbrook Academy of Art Class of 1943 Commencement, May 1943 at Cranbrook Art Museum. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

Other early commencement ceremonies took place in the Academy’s Library next door. The reading room tables and chairs were replaced with rows of seating for students and guests. By 1945, it appears academic regalia had been abandoned.

A rather sleepy Zoltan Sepeshy, Director, at Cranbrook Academy of Art Class of 1945 Commencement, May 26, 1945 in Cranbrook Academy of Art Library. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

By midcentury, as the student body expanded, commencement moved to the Greek Theatre. This remained the location for many decades, and likely where commencement will return in a post-pandemic future.

Roy Slade, President, presides over a Cranbrook Academy of Art Commencement in the early 1990s at the Greek Theatre. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

And of course, what do you need if you’re planning an outdoor event in May in Michigan? A rain plan! Christ Church Cranbrook serves as the inclement weather site of commencement, as seen here in 2015.

Cranbrook Academy of Art Class of 2015 Commencement, May 8, 2015 at Christ Church Cranbrook. Photograph by Chris Schneider, Courtesy Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Fast forward to 2020, where commencement existed only in the virtual sphere: on Zoom. Not quite an architecturally interesting locale!

Susan Ewing, Director, presides over the Cranbrook Academy of Art Class of 2020 Commencement, May 8, 2020, on Zoom. Available here.

And then, today, commencement moved to the football field. It was a sunny day with perfect weather and high spirits as the community gathered, safely and in person, to celebrate the achievements of the Academy students.

Cranbrook Academy of Art Class of 2021 Commencement, May 14, 2021 on the Thompson Oval at Cranbrook School. Photograph by Kevin Adkisson.

Now, scroll back up and notice one thing that stayed the same across the years: the Academy Flag! It was behind President Eliel Saarinen in 1943, and behind Director Susan Ewing today.

Today’s ceremony will be uploaded to the Academy’s Vimeo page soon. Meanwhile, there are still a few days left to see the Class of 2021 Graduate Degree Exhibition at Cranbrook Art Museum, which closes on Sunday, May 16, and you can also see the (coronavirus delayed) Class of 2020 Graduate Degree Exhibition at Wasserman Projects in Detroit through June 19, 2021.

Congratulations from the Center to the Cranbrook Academy of Art Class of 2021!

—Kevin Adkisson, Associate Curator, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research

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Apr

Cranbrook Gets the Royal Treatment

Not once, but twice, Cranbrook has pulled out the figurative red carpet and with appropriate fanfare welcomed Swedish royalty to its campus. Anyone who knows and loves Cranbrook might not be all that surprised by this revelation. After all, Cranbrook is a very special place—the home of dozens of sculptures by Sweden’s celebrated sculptor Carl Milles, who lived and worked at Cranbrook for twenty years, as well as many tapestries woven by Loja Saarinen’s renowned Swedish weavers. But the larger Detroit community has also boasted a significant Swedish cultural presence.

While most Michiganders might be familiar with the role that Swedish immigrants played in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula mining and lumber industries, Swedes also played major roles in Detroit’s development, from the auto industry to the fine and performing arts. Not least of all were the contributions made by Milles, including his sculpture The Hand of God, which has stood in front of the city’s Frank Murphy Hall of Justice since 1970. The founding in 1963 of the Detroit Swedish Council by Charles J. Koebel (who, decades earlier, had commissioned Eliel Saarinen to design his family home in Grosse Pointe Farms), saw a concerted effort to promote Swedish culture in the area. It was likely the unique combination of Cranbrook’s artistic works and Detroit’s vibrant Swedish community that attracted visits from Sweden’s royal family on two separate occasions.

Program for the day’s activities. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.

So it was that on October 26, 1972, Princess Christina of Sweden set foot on Cranbrook grounds as part of her two-week tour of the States. And sixteen years later, her brother and his wife, King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia, followed suit on April 18, 1988. Both visits focused largely on Carl Milles’ Cranbrook legacy, directly involved the Academy of Art and Art Museum, and were the result of collaborations between Cranbrook and the Detroit Swedish Council. Yet each visit had its own unique activities and sense of purpose.

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Nov

Remember, Remember, the Fourth of November…the 1978 Guy Fawkes Ball

On Saturday, November 4^th, 1978, the first Cranbrook Academy of Art Guy Fawkes Ball was held. The first in what became a long-running series of masquerade balls, it really put the fun into fundraising. The social event, organized by Academy staff and the Women’s Committee, also highlighted the connection between Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills and its namesake, the village of Cranbrook in Kent, England (from whence the Booth family came) as Guy Fawkes is a well-known character in English history.

Flyer for the Guy Fawkes Ball, 1978. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

Then who, you might ask, is Guy Fawkes? And why commemorate him with Guy Fawkes Night, often locally referred to as Bonfire Night? Cranbrook’s 1978 menu for the Guy Fawkes Ball described it thus:

“An English holiday celebrated with fireworks and bonfires, commemorating the apprehension of Guy Fawkes just before he planned to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605. Guy Fawkes’ gunpowder plot originated when James I refused religious freedom to Roman Catholics.”

The menu for the 1978 with the description of Guy Fawkes Night. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

The historic tale of Guy Fawkes is set against the backdrop of the religious divisions of sixteenth century England. King James I had ascended the throne only two years prior to the plot after his second cousin, Queen Elizabeth I had died. Elizabeth was born in 1533, the year of England’s break with Rome under her father, King Henry VIII. The thread of history can easily be pulled back from Guy Fawkes to the English Reformation. Yet, much to every historian’s delight, there is no end to the unraveling of history, such that, arguably, the English Reformation was the icing on a cake that was baked in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. You can read more about the Gunpowder plot here and here.

From an archival perspective, these links are useful in showing how archives can rectify widely held myths (e.g., Guy Fawkes was not the leader of the conspiracy); for thinking about how archives can be used to augment educational programs in schools; and experiencing how the digitization of archival records makes primary sources accessible to scholars and researchers around the world. And speaking of around the world, the Guy Fawkes Worldvue in 1997, saw Cranbrook Academy of Art alumna send postcards from as far as India, Austria, Scotland, Morocco and elsewhere with tales of Guy Fawkes sightings.

Postcards from the Guy Fawkes Worldvue, 1997. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

And so, back to the Guy Fawkes Ball! The first ball was so successful and entertaining, that another was planned the following year, and another. By 1982, the success of the ball won Roy Slade, President of the Cranbrook Academy of Art from 1977-1995, the title of ‘Commander of the Order of Guy Fawkes’. His collection of records is one of the many collections available for research at Cranbrook Archives.

Certificate to Roy Slade, 8 December 1982/Cranbrook Academy of Art Office of the President (Roy Slade) Records (1995-09).

Letter to Roy Slade, 8 December 1982/Cranbrook Academy of Art Office of the President (Roy Slade) Records (1995-09).

And the appropriate verse from Mother Goose? It is this:

‘Remember, remember, the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot
I see no reason why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.’

The Guy Fawkes Ball, c. 1992 with Roy Slade (top left), Guy Fawkes Ball Chair Helen Guittard (top right), Greg Wittkopp and Dora Apel (bottom).
Copyright Cranbrook Archives.

Well, it seems that the plot has not been forgotten more than 400 years later. Here at Cranbrook, the Guy Fawkes Ball became an annual event for a substantial length of time… through the 80s and the 90s until the first decade of the new millennium.

– Laura MacNewman, Associate Archivist

Apr

Saarinen/Slade House

When incoming Academy President Roy Slade arrived at Cranbrook in July 1977, the President’s House (known, off and on, as Saarinen House) was in need of a refresher. Three other families had lived in and changed the aesthetic of the house following Eliel Saarinen’s death in 1950, and the house was a far cry from Saarinen’s design intent. Slade worked with designers Jean Faulkner and Carl Magnusson (then Director of Graphics and Showroom Design at Knoll) to rework the house into something befitting the new President of the Academy.

SH Living_Norman McGrath_American Society of Magazine Photographers_78-02-8

Saarinen House, February 8, 1978. Norman McGrath, photographer. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.

The original Saarinen-designed furniture had been spread throughout the campus and Museum, and in the redesign much of it was returned for use in the house. But instead of restoring rooms to their 1930s appearance (that would happen a decade or so later), the house was kept as a blend of old and new. “Gibraltar Ash” off-white wool wall-to-wall carpeting by Jack Lenor Larsen stretched between the foyer, living room, dining room, and library, making the main room of the house feel like one continuous open space. Furnishings and art pieces by Cranbrook (and Cranbrook-adjacent) artists and designers from many decades–not just the 1930s–were blended together into a comfortable, deliberately eclectic look. The 1977 interiors of the house were featured in local papers and even included, with text by Paul Goldberger, in Living Well: The New York Times Book of Home Design and Decoration (1981).

It’s interesting in these photos by Jack Kausch how well the space works, but how alien Saarinen’s furniture seems to be! Particularly in the dining room–the holly wood table and brass fixture are decontextualized by the foreign whiteness of the walls, ceiling, and floor. The next restoration, completed in 1994, brought back Saarinen’s rich color scheme and variety of materials–including the gilded ceiling.

If you’d like to learn more about the later lives of Saarinen House, Roy Slade’s tenure as President of the Academy, and other fascinating Cranbrook Academy of Art stories, come out to visit my exhibition, Saarinen House: Presidents/Residents, 1946-1994, opening later this month.

The exhibition features archival material and works by each former resident: painter Zoltan Sepeshy, who directed the Academy from 1946 to 1966 and moved into the house in late 1951 following the death of Eliel Saarinen; architect Glen Paulsen, who led the Academy from 1966 to 1970 and expanded Cranbrook’s campus with late-Modern additions; Wallace Mitchell, a Detroit native whose career at Cranbrook developed from student to painting instructor, then director of the Art Museum and finally president; and painter and educator Roy Slade, who led the Academy and its Museum from 1977 to 1994. Slade initiated the restoration of Saarinen House in the late 1970s and encouraged and supported Greg Wittkopp (then a curator at the Art Museum) in the transformation of this early modern, Art Deco design treasure into a public house museum in 1994.

The free Opening Reception will take place Sunday, April 29, 2018, from 1pm-5pm (in conjunction with Open Studios) and the exhibition will be included on all tours of Saarinen House through November. Learn more on our website.

– Kevin Adkisson, Collections Fellow, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research