Caravaggio painted real people — street kids, cardsharps, saints with dirty feet — and a major exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts will put those models center stage. Caravaggio’s Models: Friends, Lovers, Rivals runs March 21 to July 18, 2027.
The exhibition explores the circle of models who posed again and again for the revolutionary Baroque painter, tracing the same faces across altarpieces and tavern scenes and asking what their lives were really like in early 1600s Rome. It is the kind of detective-story art history the DIA presents beautifully, and it pairs with the museum’s own Caravaggio holdings.
Together with the Velázquez exhibition opening in January, the show makes Detroit a must-stop for lovers of Baroque painting in 2027. Details will be announced at dia.org; the DIA is at 5200 Woodward Avenue in Midtown.
