Detroit presents medals to longtime arts figures in inaugural awards ceremony
Detroit rang in a new tradition Tuesday when it paid tribute to a formidable slate of local arts figures during the city's first ACE Honors ceremony.
Spearheaded by the City’s Department of Arts, Culture and Entrepreneurship (ACE), the event was devised by ACE Director Rochelle Riley as a way to celebrate artists and arts patrons who have contributed 25 or more years of exceptional service to the region.
“It’s interesting, around the country and around the world, the recognition that’s given to the creative talent coming out of the city,” said Mayor Mike Duggan. "We have not always celebrated it as thoroughly as we should have."
Riley said the award recipients are people “who have given lifetimes to the creative genius that has made Detroit what it is to people around the world.”
In future years, there will be five annual honorees, but the inaugural event saw 16 Detroit ACE Honors medals distributed for arts figures both living and deceased.
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Though some of those honored have passed on, such as Michigan Opera Theatre founder David DiChiera (whose medal was accepted by Detroit Opera president Wayne S. Brown) and 19th century painter Robert Duncanson (whose medal was accepted by Marsha Philpot - also known as Marsha Music - on behalf of Detroit Institute of the Arts), Tuesday's event was very much a celebration of life.
The honorees, even those at advanced age, are still forging ahead with their missions. Painter and sculptor Artis Lane, 94, and painter Shirley Woodson, 85, were among those honored.
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Honoree Elizabeth "Betty" Brooks, a longtime arts patron who also serves on the city's Board of Police Commissioners, spoke of what she's achieved and what's still to come.
"My husband was an Air Force officer, and (we) moved around a lot," she said. "And every place we moved, I did volunteer work. When he retired and we came to Detroit, I asked people, 'What's the best way to get involved?' They couldn't tell me, so I struck out on my own. I have been part of so many organizations, and I am so thankful that I've been able to help others, doing what I love in a city that I love so much."
Vera Heidelberg, a driving force behind the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's annual Classical Roots program, said she was stunned to also be honored.
"I had no idea that anyone had noticed anything I'd done," she said. "It was just part of my interests, trying to make sure that African-American composers and performers were able to become a part of the music community in Detroit, and particularly at the Detroit Symphony. I don't know that many in the community knew about that before we brought Classical Roots to the table."
Engineer, craftsman and design artist Carlos Nielbock, who also accepted an award, spoke enthusiastically of his current projects.
"I am really trying to hit it out of the ballpark by creating new landmarks, and reinstating lost artifacts that were great in Detroit," he told the Free Press. "For instance, soon we'll be reinstating the Unity Bell, which was cast in 1870 and was in the center of the old City Hall. That bell made it from when there were 70,000 people in our outpost to Detroit being the richest city, 'the Paris of the Midwest.' We got a new frame built, and it will be at the Eastern Market, opening and closing the market just like it was a long-term tradition."
Detroit-Windsor Dance Academy co-founder and artistic director Debra White-Hunt, sparkling with energy and effervescence, twirled and dashed off to teach a senior tap class after receiving her award.
"The youngest (in the class) is 56," White-Hunt said, "and she hates for me to say they're seniors! The oldest is 73, I think, and we just did a show that brought the house down. It is so exciting to see people that are still interested in their health at all ages. I'm training the next generation, but I still teach, and I love it."
"I was really excited for this honor, because the vision is finally coming to pass — what Detroit can be — and people are realizing it. We knew it as artists, but the greater part of society doesn't know of the Detroit life. And we have so much talent. I'm just happy that it is being represented and honored and appreciated."
Below is a full list of awardees:
Elizabeth "Betty" Brooks, board member of the Detroit Historical Society, Motown Museum, Detroit Jazz Festival, Detroit Institute of Arts, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the Michigan Opera Theatre. Brooks chaired the 150th anniversary celebration for the Detroit Public Library and the second annual Eastern Market Harvest Celebration, and is an appointed member of the Board of Police Commissioners for the city of Detroit.
David DiChiera, founder of Michigan Opera Theatre and former president of Opera America. The late DiChiera was the critically acclaimed composer of “Four Sonnets” (premiered at the Kennedy Center) and “Cyrano” (premiered at the Detroit Opera House, later presented by the Opera Company of Philadelphia and the Florida Grand Opera). He was also a 2013 Kresge Eminent Artist and recipient of the Opera Honors Award by the National Endowment for the Arts, the nation’s highest award for lifetime achievement in opera.
Robert S. Duncanson, a prolific painter known for sweeping, large-scale landscapes. He established a studio in Detroit in 1849, where he would become the most accomplished African American painter of the 1850s and 1860s. A collection of Duncanson’s work hangs in the Detroit Institute of Arts. He is considered to be the first African American artist to gain international recognition and has been proclaimed by American media as “the best landscape painter in the West.”
LeRoy Foster, fine portrait painter and muralist known for public commissions, including “The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass” for the Frederick Douglass Branch of the Detroit Public Library, “Kaleidoscope” for the lobby of Southwest Detroit Hospital and “Renaissance City” for the old Cass Technical High School Building. Foster was a graduate of Cass Tech, the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts School (now the College of Creative Studies), L’Academie de la Grand Chaumeire in Paris and Heatherly School of Art in London. In 1958, he co-founded the Contemporary Studio with Charles McGee, Harold Neal and Henri Umbaji King.
Tyree Guyton, neo-expressionist artist, 2009 Kresge Artist Fellow and creator of the internationally renowned Heidelberg Project. Guyton studied at the College for Creative Studies and was awarded an honorary doctorate of fine art. He has been featured at the Detroit Institute of Arts, the University of Michigan Museum of Art and the Studio Museum of Harlem as well as in the Emmy Award-winning documentary "Come Unto Me: The Faces of Tyree Guyton."
Vera Heidelberg, co-chair of the first Classical Roots Celebration, an annual concert sponsored by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra recognizing African American contributions to classical music. Heidelberg is a graduate of the Detroit Institute of Technology and Wayne State University. She is a member of the Greater Wayne County Chapter of the Links and has served as chairwoman of the Women’s Committee of the United Negro College Fund.
Artis Lane, portrait artist and sculptor known for works featuring President John F. Kennedy, Frank Sinatra, Henry Kissinger, Barbara Bush, Rosa Parks, Michael Jordan and Aretha Franklin. Lane was the first woman to be admitted to the prestigious Cranbrook Art Academy. She has been recipient of the Women of Excellence Award by the Museum of African American Art in Los Angeles and the Women for Women Award from the Martin Luther King, Jr. General Hospital Foundation.
Charles McGee, prolific painter and sculptor with work featured at the Detroit Institute of Arts, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, the Brooklyn Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art. McGee, who died in February, was founder of the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit and the first Kresge Eminent Artist in 2008. Over the years, he also advised the state of Michigan, city of Detroit and numerous local arts institutions on cultural initiatives.
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Carlos Nielbock, master architectural ornamental metal and design artist, engineer and craftsman, whose work was featured in the Fox Theatre restoration. Inventor of the Detroit Windmill, the first and only fully upcycled, low-level wind turbine, Nielbock is a UNESCO Detroit City of Design Ambassador and Honorary Member of the American Institute of Architects. He is also founder of C.A.N. Art Handworks, an ornamental architectural metals handcrafting studio on Detroit’s east side.
Dudley Randall, the city of Detroit’s first poet laureate. Randall was founder of Broadside Press and was once called “the Father of the Black Poetry Movement” by Black Enterprise Magazine. In addition, he was the author of “A Litany of Friends: New and Selected Poems” and “More to Remember: Poems of Four Decades,” as well as editor of “The Black Poets and For Malcom: Poems on the Life and Death of Malcolm X.”
Gretchen Valade, philanthropist and leading patron of numerous Detroit arts institutions, including the Detroit Jazz Festival and Wayne State University’s jazz program. She is the founder of Grammy Award-winning Mack Avenue Records and the Gretchen C. Valade Endowment for the Arts. Valade is also chairwoman of Carhartt Inc. and owner of Grosse Pointe Farms’ Dirty Dog Jazz Café and Morning Glory Coffee.
Marilyn Wheaton, longtime director of the city of Detroit’s Cultural Affairs Department, Concerned Citizens for the Arts in Michigan and the Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum on the Saginaw Valley State University campus. Wheaton helped orchestrate art for the Detroit Tricentennial Celebration, including the International Memorial to the Underground Railroad on the Detroit riverfront. Throughout her career before retiring in 2018, she worked to make Detroit a cultural destination through raising funds for art programs in the city.
Debra White-Hunt, co-founder and artistic director of the Detroit-Windsor Dance Academy. White-Hunt has choreographed more than 50 ballets and directed more than 100 dance concerts. A 2020 Kresge Arts Fellow, she has been commissioned to create works for stage, television, and film and is recipient of numerous local and national awards for her excellence in arts and education.
Shirley Woodson, a painter known for large-scale figurative work featured in the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. The longtime Detroit public school teacher and supervisor of fine arts was Kresge’s 2021 Eminent Artist. She is also co-founder of the Michigan Chapter of the National Conference of Artists, the longest-running national arts organization dedicated to nurturing, developing, and promoting opportunities for Black visual artists.
Another medal was awarded to Jamon Jordan, the city of Detroit's first official historian, an honorary position appointed in fall 2021. A medal was also presented to the Kresge Foundation, which since 2008 has awarded more than $6.7 million through Kresge Arts in Detroit’s Kresge Eminent Artist Awards, Kresge Artist Fellowships and Gilda Awards. Kresge has also sustained Detroit ACE through its first two years.
Contact Free Press arts and culture reporter Duante Beddingfield at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @DBFreePress.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit creatives honored in inaugural ACE awards ceremony
