Visual art
Zoltan Sepeshy
1898–1974 · painter, art educator
Hungarian-born painter who settled in Detroit in 1921 and later led the Cranbrook Academy of Art for about two decades.
- Born
Kassa, Hungary (now Košice, Slovakia)- Died
Royal Oak, Michigan- Birth name
- Sepeshy Zoltán
- Also known as
- Sepeshy Zoltán
- Detroit years
- 1921–1974
- Field
- Visual art
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Born in Kassa in the Kingdom of Hungary and trained in Budapest and Vienna, Sepeshy emigrated to the United States in 1921 and settled in Detroit. He painted the city and the Michigan landscape and taught art, and in the early 1930s he joined the faculty of the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills as a painting instructor. He became known as a master of tempera, producing crisp, luminous scenes of industry, harbors and everyday life, and he took on mural work, including a 1941 mural for Detroit's Rackham Building on the theme of the scientist, the artist and the farmer. After Eliel Saarinen stepped back, Sepeshy became Cranbrook's second director and later its president, leading the academy until 1966. His paintings are in the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Cranbrook Art Museum. He died in Royal Oak in 1974.
Highlights
- Emigrated from Hungary to Detroit in 1921
- Cranbrook's second director and later president, until 1966
- Noted tempera painter of industrial and harbor scenes
- 1941 mural for Detroit's Rackham Building
- Works in the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Cranbrook Art Museum
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Worked here · 1930s–1966
Cranbrook Academy of Art
Where he taught painting and later served as director and president.
Worked here · 1941
Rackham Building (Detroit)
Status being checked
Site of his 1941 mural on the scientist, the artist and the farmer; current state of the mural not verified.