Celebrate Slow Art Day, a world-wide event designed to spread the joy of looking at art “slowly.” Come to the Flint Institute of Arts to view five works of art for ten minutes each and then stay for lunch to discuss your experience. Bring your own lunch or purchase something at the café. For more information about Slow Art Day visit SlowArtDay.com.
Find out What’s Up at the FIA!
Please join us in making memories and lasting connections at the Flint Institute of Arts on this tour for individuals with memory loss and their family members or caregivers. What’s Up tours will be held on Sunday Sept. 30 and Oct. 14 at 2 p.m. and will last one hour. Space is limited and preregistration is required. This program is free of charge and open to the public. Wheelchairs and walkers are welcome.
What’s Up at the FIA makes the FIA’s collection accessible to those living with memory loss, providing an expressive outlet and forum for dialogue through guided tour and discussion in the FIA’s galleries.
Specially trained museum educators conduct interactive tours and engage participants in lively dialogue about artworks by such notable artists as Mary Cassatt and John Singer Sargent. Reproductions of the artworks discussed are given to participants so they can continue the dialogue at home.
What’s Up at the FIA is based on the Museum of Modern Art in New York’s highly successful Meet Me at MoMA program, which has shown that the act of looking at art can be a rich and satisfying experience for people with memory loss and their caregivers.
The Flint Institute of Arts is committed to enabling all visitors to experience the visual arts. FIA recognizes the diversity of the general public’s abilities and needs, and offers programs to address those abilities and needs.
Space is limited and preregistration is required. For more information or to register, please call the education department at 810.237.7314, or email flintartsed@me.com. Programs for groups can also be arranged.
What’s Up at the FIA is sponsored by the Merkley-Elderly Trust and the Nartel Family Foundation
November 2011 marked the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Viola E. Bray Renaissance Gallery at the Flint Institute of Arts.
To celebrate the Year of the Bray and Mrs. Viola E. Bray’s contributions, FIA presents the exhibition Viola E. Bray: A Legacy of Giving, on display from May 5 to Aug. 19, 2012 in the Viola E. Bray and Summerfield Galleries.
The Year of the Bray (2011–2012) honors the 50th anniversary of Mrs. Viola E. Bray’s contribution of Renaissance and Baroque works, along with a unique gallery, to the people of Flint.
Commemorating Mrs. Bray’s gift and philanthropy, the FIA highlights the works that entered the museum’s collections through the generosity of the Bray Charitable Trust, a fund established for the care of art, acquisition of new works, and other cultural endeavors.
Works like Francisco Goya’s The Death of St. Joseph (1787) and John Singer Sargent’s Garden Study of the Vickers Children (1884) are just two of several important works that are on view together to celebrate Mrs. Bray’s legacy.
Mrs. Viola E. Bray (1873–1961), a Flint, Michigan native, avid art collector, and philanthropist, donated nearly 60 Renaissance and Baroque art objects, along with a specially designed gallery to display them. In her lifetime, Mrs. Bray also collected hundreds of fine examples of paperweights and other works of glass, many of which are now in the FIA collection (given by Mr. and Mrs. William L. Richards, her son-in-law and daughter).
Mrs. Bray chose to share her enthusiasm for art and history with the community in which she lived and worked by establishing her namesake gallery, along with the Bray Charitable Trust, providing funds for the care and maintenance of the collection, the acquisition of new works, and other cultural endeavors. An avid art collector, Mrs. Bray not only acquired beautiful works but also studied them closely as a way to gain insight into the past.
In addition to her social and community groups, Mrs. Bray spent much time researching her family’s history, eventually writing and publishing a book on her and her husband’s ancestry. Her research skills and desire for knowledge carried over to her collecting practices. She loved to research and record everything there was to know about the works she acquired. She traveled to the East Coast to collect art, and it was on one of her travels east that she visited French & Company in New York City. At this gallery, she purchased the set of ten French tapestries that would become the centerpiece of the Renaissance and Baroque collection she donated to the FIA.
Viola Bray died on May 24, 1961. Her memory lives on in her collection and in the gallery she established, and the Bray Charitable Trust continues to provide funds to care for that precious collection of art, which she gave to the people of Flint.
Join Education staff at the Flint Institute of Arts for a free family program, Remarkable Chairs, on April 28 at 1 p.m.
From stools to armchairs and everything in between, the chair has a remarkable history.
Visit the Bray Gallery and find out what chairs can tell us about the people who own them. Then make and decorate your own miniature chair to take with you.
Family programs are designed for children ages four and up and accompanying adults.
For questions, please contact the Education department at 810.237.7314 or flintartsed@me.com.
The education department at the Flint Institute of Arts is launching a pilot program to better serve the visually impaired.
Visitors can now use high-contrast graphics and tactile panels to experience the Rinaldo and Armida tapestries located in the Bray Renaissance Gallery. The graphics are available upon request at Visitor Services in the FIA lobby.
The high-contrast graphics make it easy to see what’s happening in the tapestries, as bright colors are placed on a black background. On the other hand, the tactile panels are composed of a variety of fabric materials that visitors can feel and touch.
The tapestries tell the story of Rinaldo and Armida from Tarquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered), published in 1581. The literary work is an epic poem that commemorates and mythologizes the first crusade of 1095-1099 when Christian knights, led by Godfry de Bouillon (c.1058-1100), relieved Jerusalem from Saracen control.
Loosely based on historical fact, it is a fictionalized account composed in the chivalric tradition that grappled with the conflicting demands of duty versus desire. The entire poem is composed of twenty long cantos or chapters, of which the Story of Rinaldo and Armida is only part, comprising the last six divisions.
The original set of 10 tapestries were made in Paris in the Foubourg Saint-Germain tapestry workshop on the rue de la Chaise, which was active from 1633 to 1667/8. They were woven in wool and silk around 1633-1637 under the direction of Raphael de la Planche, after designs painted by Simon Vouet, the premier peintre du roi, or first painter to the king.
Flint Institute of Arts 