Hubert Massey (born 1958) [1] [2] is an artist of a variety of mediums, [3] and well known for his large-scale installations in the Buon Fresco style. [4] Massey has 15 works of public art throughout the state of Michigan, [5] and has been commissioned by various local organizations including universities, [6] museums, hotels, and the Michigan Department of Transportation. [5] He now resides in Detroit, Michigan with his wife Marquita. [5]
Hubert Massey was born in Flint, Michigan in 1958. [5] He graduated from Beecher High School [2] and earned a Bachelor of Arts from Grand Valley State University in 1981. [7] He continued his studies of the arts at University of London's Slade School of Fine Art. [5] There, he studied with Stephen Dimitroff, Lucienne Bloch, and other apprentices of muralist Diego Rivera. [8] Afterwards, Massey worked with the Gannett Outdoor Sign Company as a pictorial painter for 12 years. [2] He then met Marquita and had three children, most notably Jordon Massey who is pioneering sinkhole research with peer John Paul Hager.
Working in a variety of fine art mediums, Massey has published 15 works throughout the cities of Detroit, Flint, Ann Arbor, and Grand Rapids. [5] Massey is the artist of the 30-foot high Hellenic mural at the Atheneum Hotel, the 18-foot high frescoes at the Detroit Athletic Club, and Genealogy, a 72-foot diameter terrazzo embellishing the entrance of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. [5] Massey was the first African-American commissioned to create a mural for the Detroit Athletic Club. [5] He also created works of stained glass at the Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church, [5] and Paradise Valley, a terrazzo at Harmonie Park in Detroit featuring historical figures, musicians, and community leaders that have influenced the area. [5] Additional works include those featured in Massey's Importing and Exporting of Knowledge exhibit in the Richard DeVos Building at Grand Valley State University's downtown campus. [9] Other works featured at Grand Valley State University include Snow and Rocks, Panorama, The Friends of Henry Ford, and Magnolia's Song. [9] His piece Trompe l’oeil is featured at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, [9] Earth, Wind, and Fire at the Flint Institute of Arts, [10] and two granite murals at Campus Martius Park in Detroit. [11]
Massey was also the first artist commissioned by the Michigan Department of Transportation. [5] Selected by a national search committee, Massey created The Spiral of Life mural located at the Bagley Pedestrian Bridge in Southwest Detroit. [5] Stationed near both the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit Mexicantown International Welcome Center and Mercado, the mural represents the rich Latino culture in the area. [5] Other works include Spiral Kinship, [5] and the Death of Hector. [5] In 2016, Massey will seek community input for a mural that he will reveal at the Cobo Center in Detroit. [12]
As stated in an interview with BLAC Detroit, Massey's ambition in American urban communities is to "make a difference by telling the history of our cultural richness." [13] As the only commissioned African-American fresco artist in the United States, Massey aims to tell stories through his artwork in an "open spirit that heals everybody." [5] Massey is also noted for working with communities, the youth, and engaging them in the design process. [5] In 2013, Massey mentored a group of student artists from the Henry Ford Academy during a yearlong project. Under Massey's guidance, the students released an 8 by 28-foot mural at the William Seidman Center at Grand State Valley University. [14]
Massey serves as an art mentor for the Detroit Council of Arts and the Detroit Summer Youth Employment Program. He also collaborates with The Advanced Gifted and Talented Program, a partnership between Wayne State University and the Detroit Public Schools. [7]
In 1993, Hubert Massey was chosen to be a member of the National Society of Mural Painters of New York. [7] As a result of his involvement in his local community, Massey was also delegated to the Wayne County Community Leaders Council in 1995. [7] In April 2001, Massey received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Grand Valley State University, [5] recognized as an alum with significant achievements in his professional career. [7] Massey was also the Challenge America Grant Awardee of the National Endowment of Arts in 2007 [5] and recognized as a Visual Arts Fellow by the Kresge Foundation in 2011. [15] In 2013, Massey received an Honorary Doctorate Degree from Grand Valley State University. [2] Massey is a recipient of the Spirit of Detroit Award, the Dr. Alaine Locke Recognition Award, and is an Artist in Residence for both the Ruth Mott Foundation and Grand Valley State University. [14]
A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage.
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera, was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the mural movement in Mexican and international art.
Edwin Howland Blashfield was an American painter and muralist, most known for painting the murals on the dome of the Library of Congress Main Reading Room in Washington, DC.
The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, or The Wright, is located in Detroit, Michigan in the U.S.; inside the city's Midtown Cultural Center is one of the world's oldest independent African American museums.
Julius Garibaldi Melchers was an American artist. He was one of the leading American proponents of naturalism. He won a 1932 Gold medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Charles Cecil Pollock was an American abstract painter and the eldest brother of artist Jackson Pollock.
Lucienne Bloch was a Switzerland-born American artist. She was best known for her murals and for her association with the Mexican artist Diego Rivera, for whom she produced the only existing photographs of Rivera's mural Man at the Crossroads, painted in 1933 and destroyed in January 1934 at Rockefeller Center in New York City.
Steve "Pablo" Davis was an American artist, lifelong communist activist and Detroit community organizer. He was the last living member of the team of artists who worked with Diego Rivera on the Detroit Industry mural which is in the central courtyard, Rivera Court, of the Detroit Institute of Arts.
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Charles McGee was an American artist and educator known for creating paintings, assemblages, and sculptures. His artwork is in the collections of the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. He also had several large-scale public works in the city of Detroit.
The Detroit Industry Murals (1932–1933) are a series of frescoes by the Mexican artist Diego Rivera, consisting of twenty-seven panels depicting industry at the Ford Motor Company and in Detroit. Together they surround the interior Rivera Court in the Detroit Institute of Arts. Painted between 1932 and 1933, they were considered by Rivera to be his most successful work. On April 23, 2014, the Detroit Industry Murals were designated by the Department of Interior as a National Historic Landmark.
Hugo Ballin was an American artist, muralist, author, and film director. Ballin was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the National Academy of Design.
The Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture was a New Deal art project established on October 16, 1934, and administered by the Procurement Division of the United States Department of the Treasury.
Mexican muralism refers to the art project initially funded by the Mexican government in the immediate wake of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) to depict visions of Mexico's past, present, and future, transforming the walls of many public buildings into didactic scenes designed to reshape Mexicans' understanding of the nation's history. The murals, large artworks painted onto the walls themselves had social, political, and historical messages. Beginning in the 1920s, the muralist project was headed by a group of artists known as "The Big Three" or "The Three Greats". This group was composed of Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Although not as prominent as the Big Three, women also created murals in Mexico. From the 1920s to the 1970s, many murals with nationalistic, social and political messages were created in many public settings such as chapels, schools, government buildings, and much more. The popularity of the Mexican muralist project started a tradition which continues to this day in Mexico; a tradition that has had a significant impact in other parts of the Americas, including the United States, where it served as inspiration for the Chicano art movement.
Paul Kelpe was a German-born American abstract painter. His constructions integrating found objects into paintings were the first such works created in the United States and he painted two of the five Williamsburg murals, the first abstract murals in the United States. In addition to his mural work for various American government projects, he was an innovative independent painter and university art professor. He was a pioneer of American abstract art, including his work in Chicago during a period in which abstracts were not well accepted or appreciated.
Bernard Baruch Zakheim was a Warsaw-born San Francisco muralist, best known for his work on the Coit Tower murals.
Gilda Snowden was an African-American artist, educator and mentor from Detroit, Michigan.
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Ryah Ludins (1896–1957) was a Russian-born American muralist, painter, printmaker, art teacher, and writer. She made murals for post offices and other government buildings during the Great Depression and also obtained commissions for murals from Mexican authorities and an industrial concern. Unusually versatile in her technique, she made murals in fresco, mixed media, and wood relief, as well as on canvas and dry plaster. She exhibited her paintings widely but became better known as a printmaker after prints such as "Cassis" (1928) and "Bombing" drew favorable notice from critics. She taught art in academic settings and privately, wrote and illustrated a children's book, and contributed an article to a radical left-wing art magazine. A career spanning more than three decades ended when she succumbed to a long illness in the late 1950s.