Cranbrook Academy of Art

Cranbrook Academy of Art Cranbrook Academy of Art is the country’s top ranked, graduate-only program in architecture, design and fine art.
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Each year, just 75 students are invited to study and live on the landmark Saarinen-designed campus in Bloomfield Hills, which features: private studios, state-of-the art workshops, the renowned Cranbrook Art Museum and 300 acres of forests, lakes and streams, all a short drive from the city of Detroit. The focus at Cranbrook is on studio practice in one of ten disciplines including Architecture, 2

D and 3D Design, Ceramics, Fiber, Metalsmithing, Painting, Photography, Print Media, and Sculpture. The program is anchored by celebrated Artists- and Designers-in-Residence, one for each discipline, all of whom live and practice on campus alongside the graduate students. The community-at-large is invited to participate in public events at the Academy which annually include exhibitions, symposium, and lectures by dozens of internationally acclaimed artists, critics, scholars, art museum directors, curators and gallerists who are invited to campus each semester to supplement the individualized instruction, critiques, and mentoring by the Artists-in-Residence. For more information on all our programs, please visit: http://www.cranbrook.edu

A lot of people decide on Cranbrook the moment they arrive. Prospective MFA students, join us for the next Campus Facili...
09/03/2026

A lot of people decide on Cranbrook the moment they arrive.

Prospective MFA students, join us for the next Campus Facilities Tour on Friday, September 25, 2pm.

RSVP: https://bit.ly/34WLbpl

Cranbrook alumna Songer Yang (MFA 2D Design 2025) is featured in a new profile from Our Culture magazine, exploring her ...
09/02/2026

Cranbrook alumna Songer Yang (MFA 2D Design 2025) is featured in a new profile from Our Culture magazine, exploring her work on memory, material culture, and deliberate slowness.

Yang works across painting, fiber, and object-making, treating ordinary domestic objects as carriers of family memory. The article centers on Spoon, a two-part project built around a childhood utensil Yang lost: one she once used to eat her grandmother's steamed egg. She remade it first alongside her grandfather, hammering salvaged copper from broken rice cookers, then alone — one spoon a day for a month, working entirely from memory.

Her soft sculptures, including Hair, Womb, and Pray, extend the same inquiry into matrilineal inheritance, grief, and the invisible labor of care.

Read more: https://bit.ly/4qOtxxv

📸 Songer Yang, Spoon. Courtesy of the artist.

Cranbrook alumna Lauren Semivan (MFA Photography 2006) opens a solo exhibition at the Miller Art Museum this month, as p...
09/01/2026

Cranbrook alumna Lauren Semivan (MFA Photography 2006) opens a solo exhibition at the Miller Art Museum this month, as part of the museum's 12x12 Project, a monthly series pairing a focused solo exhibition with acquisition into the museum's permanent collection.

Semivan constructs her photographs in the studio using a large-format view camera and hand-built environments, layering drawing, an archive of found objects, and the human figure into images that sit between document and invention. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, the Wriston Art Galleries at Lawrence University, and the Elton John Photography Collection. She is represented by Benrubi Gallery (New York), David Klein Gallery (Detroit), and the Portrait Society Gallery for Contemporary Art (Milwaukee).

Read more: https://bit.ly/4qO4drz

📸 Lauren Semivan, Plastic Arrangement, 2026. Archival pigment print. Courtesy of the artist.

🏁   kicks off this week. 🔥 Here's where to catch Cranbrook Academy of Art artists first:◼️ Tues, Sept 2 (6–8pm): "Dress ...
08/31/2026

🏁 kicks off this week. 🔥 Here's where to catch Cranbrook Academy of Art artists first:

◼️ Tues, Sept 2 (6–8pm): "Dress Poetics" opens at Always Tomorrow — featuring Taylor Childs (MFA Fiber 2024), Gabriela Gutiérrez (MFA Ceramics 2022), Kiwi Phong Nguyen (MFA Metalsmithing 2023), and Dessislava Terzieva (MFA Sculpture 2021).
📍 2900 E. Grand Blvd, Detroit, MI 48202

◼️ Fri, Sept 4 (6–9pm): "Zahra Almajidi: Casting the Net" opens at PLAYGROUND DETROIT — Zahra Almajidi (MFA Metalsmithing 2021). Almajidi is a PLAYGROUND DETROIT 2025 Emerging Artist Fellowship recipient, powered by Gilbert Family Foundation.
📍 2845 Gratiot Ave, Detroit, MI 48207

◼️ Saturday, Sept 5 (6-9pm): Opening Reception Sophia Wojnovich: I'm Having Fun, Aren't You at Mouse Gallery
📍 8019 Dexter Ave, Detroit, MI, 4820606

Full roundup of Cranbrook artists in Detroit Month of Design: https://bit.ly/3SRCSs0
More next Monday. 👀

Cranbrook Educational Community | Design Core Detroit

1: Graphic courtesy of Always Tomorrow
2: Graphic courtesy of PLAYGROUND DETROIT
3: Photo courtesy of Mouse Gallery

08/29/2026

Hidden gem, modern art mecca, architectural marvel, total design...but most importantly, a working community for makers.

This is the space, and maybe your space - MFA applications open October 1, 2026.

"Watching grass push through the concrete of a ruined city gave me a new perspective on the power of life that persists ...
08/28/2026

"Watching grass push through the concrete of a ruined city gave me a new perspective on the power of life that persists even in places abandoned by humans." - Suhyung Park

In Seoul, this is the last weekend to catch Cranbrook Academy of Art alumnus Park Suhyung's (MFA Painting 2016) solo show at Chung Art Gallery, on view through August 30. Several Korean news outlets have covered the exhibition, including an in-depth interview with mimio.

His time studying painting at Cranbrook and watching grass grow through Detroit's concrete sparked the Grass series that's defined his practice for two decades. Now that series is showcased alongside his People series and a brand-new Space Dot series, where dots read as outer space from afar and resolve into grass up close.

Full story: https://bit.ly/4wZJtib

1: Suhyung Park, Continuous Play Blue to Pink, 2026. Oil on canvas, 116x91cm. Courtesy of the artist/Chung Art Gallery.
2: Suhyung Park, Space Dot 1, 2026. Oil on canvas, 100x120cm. Courtesy of the artist/Chung Art Gallery.

🙌📢 🔥 Over SIXTY Cranbrook Academy of Art alumni and Artists-in-Residence across all of our programs are participating in...
08/27/2026

🙌📢 🔥 Over SIXTY Cranbrook Academy of Art alumni and Artists-in-Residence across all of our programs are participating in Design Core Detroit's 2026 Detroit Month of Design this September!

🌇 Every year, Design Core Detroit presents Detroit Month of Design, a citywide celebration of creativity that gathers designers and the greater community to celebrate Detroit’s role as a national and global design capital.

Cranbrook Academy of Art and Cranbrook Art Museum's events:
◼️ Sept 19: LIVE/WORK, Cranbrook Alumni Studio Crawl — 30+ artists across Metro Detroit
◼️ Sept 19: Artist talk with Cody Norma at Cranbrook Art Museum
◼️ Sept 23: Book launch with Scott Klinker at Cranbrook Art Museum
◼️ Sept 26: Detroit Moves the Future, Design Core Detroit X Cranbrook Academy of Art closing symposium

✨ You can find Cranbrook artists across open studios; solo, two-person, and group exhibitions; artist talks; and panel discussions throughout the month. Explore our full roundup on our website: https://bit.ly/4hXUD39

Cranbrook Educational Community

1: Graphic courtesy of Design Core Detroit/Detroit Month of Design
2: Zahra Almajidi. Photo by Brian Romero. Courtesy of the artist and PLAYGROUND DETROIT
3: Graphic courtesy Wild Form Project
4: Elysia Vandenbussche in her studio. Courtesy of the artist.
5: Aaron Blendowski with his designs. Courtesy of the artist.
6: Cover of Scott Klinker's Fine Design publication. Courtesy of Set Margins'.
7: Left to right: Sudani Shaah, Taylor Childs, and Majesty Hope. Courtesy of the artists and Design Core Detroit.

Cranbrook alumna Karyn Olivier (MFA Ceramics 2001) is the subject of a new profile in The American Scholar.Writer Noelan...
08/26/2026

Cranbrook alumna Karyn Olivier (MFA Ceramics 2001) is the subject of a new profile in The American Scholar.

Writer Noelani Kirschner traces Olivier's path: an immigrant family where art wasn't "in the program," a psychology degree at Dartmouth, years in retail, and finally a spot at Cranbrook. She came to study ceramics, but found herself "restricted by the limitation of clay." A mentor told her to take a break, and she found new inspiration at the hardware store.

That shift still shapes her work today, including her solo show, "Bend, Break, Mend," on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit - MOCAD. The exhibition showcases Olivier's ability to transform diverse common-good materials into profound works of art.

In October, Karyn Olivier will return to Cranbrook to give a public talk at deSalle Auditorium, to coincide with the closing of her solo exhibition at MOCAD.

📸: Installation view of "Bend, Break, Mend" at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. (Photo credit: Timothy Johnson.)

📅 Fall 2027 applications open October 1, 2026. Between now and then, here are a few good ways to get to know Cranbrook—v...
08/25/2026

📅 Fall 2027 applications open October 1, 2026. Between now and then, here are a few good ways to get to know Cranbrook—virtually and in person. RSVP for an online conversation, register for a campus tour, or ask questions by emailing CAAadmissions(at)cranbrook(dot)edu.

Register here: https://bit.ly/4gfmb2x

◼️ Sept. 19: International Portfolio Day, Seoul, Korea
◼️ Sept. 24: Cranbrook Online Conversation: How Cranbrook Actually Works
◼️ Sept. 25: Cranbrook Campus Facilities Tour
◼️ Sept. 26: Graduate National Portfolio Day Online
◼️ Oct. 15: Cranbrook Online Conversation: The Application as Studio Practice
◼️ Oct. 17: Graduate National Portfolio Day, Chicago, IL
◼️ Oct. 24: Cranbrook Prospective Graduate Student Open House

📸 Issac Daniels' (Graphic Design 2027) Cranbrook studio. Photo by Danielle deo Owensby.

Prospective Graduate Student Open House is a full-day experience where the full picture comes together in one place.Stud...
08/21/2026

Prospective Graduate Student Open House is a full-day experience where the full picture comes together in one place.

Studios are open, current students are around, and information sessions are running throughout the day. You'll have the chance to ask the questions that matter to you and experience the campus from Academy Way to Cranbrook Art Museum.

It's not a tour so much as a day to see how Cranbrook works — and if it feels right for you.

October 24, 2026, from 9am–4pm. Register: https://bit.ly/4bVd7NR

📸: Past Open House events. Photos by Sarah C Blanchette

Address

39221 Woodward Avenue
Bloomfield Hills, MI
48303

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+12486453300

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