A new exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts explores how abstraction took root around the Great Lakes. Continental: The Roots of Abstraction in the Great Lakes and Canada opens Sunday, November 15, 2026, and runs through March 29, 2027, bringing together paintings shaped by the landscapes, industries and restless creative energy of this part of North America.
The story begins with place. In the early and mid-20th century, artists working in Michigan, across the Great Lakes and in Canada looked hard at their own surroundings — forests and fields, factories and rail yards, shorelines that stretch like inland seas — and pushed their work toward abstraction in their own way. The exhibition draws that map in art, following the networks of teachers, friendships and traveling exhibitions that connected studios on both sides of the border.
The centerpiece is Milton Avery (1885–1965), an American modernist whose simplified forms and luminous color influenced generations on both sides of the border. His paintings sit at the heart of the story, linking Canadian painters such as Jack Bush and Paterson Ewen with peers across the lakes and giving the show a warm, generous anchor.
For Detroiters, the exhibition is also a reminder that the DIA has been part of this story for decades. The museum’s modern galleries in Midtown now welcome a show that starts at home and widens outward, to Canada and back again. The DIA sits at 5200 Woodward Avenue, and its collection — from Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry murals to beloved galleries of American, European, African and Asian art — makes an opening weekend visit easy to stretch into a full day.
Continental runs November 15, 2026 through March 29, 2027. Admission details, hours and tickets are on dia.org.
Photo: Detroit Institute of Arts
