arts&life

art / on the cover

Rise!

Beverly Fishman’s dynamic new mural shines.

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

everly Fishman’s art-
work has long been in
the spotlight, but her
latest project opens up to sun-
light.
Rise, a colorful and massive
abstract mural spanning 170
feet by 60 feet — the largest
design she has ever originated
— covers the north-facing
wall of the Detroit City Club
Apartments under construc-
tion at the Downtown site
once holding the Statler Hotel.
“I’m a city girl at heart and
wanted to make a dynamic
impact,” Fishman says about
her approach to the commis-
sion greeting onlookers along
Washington Boulevard. “The
title was chosen to reflect the
theme of light — sunrise and
sunset — as well as the posi-
tive changes that are occur-
ring in the Motor City right
now.”
Fishman, who teamed up
with Motown Sign to complete
the installation, takes on inde-
pendent assignments while
serving as artist-in-residence
and head of the painting
department at Cranbrook
Academy of Art in Bloomfield
Hills. Segments of her earlier
work have expressed scientific
and pharmaceutical themes.
The mural, estimated to
cost $100,000, was commis-
sioned at the direction of
Jonathan Holtzman, CEO of
City Club Apartments and a
longtime Cranbrook Academy

B

of Art board member.
“Art really adds dimension
to a city,” says Holtzman, a
member of the American
Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC) who is
also involved with donating
segments of the vast literary
collection of his late father,
Irwin T. Holtzman, to the
National Library of Israel as
it gets a new facility. “Beverly
Fishman’s mural is dynamic
and colorful, and the idea that
a Cranbrook artist-in-resi-
dence did the design really ties
together Detroiters in improv-
ing our city.”
The outdoor piece adorns a
multi-use development under
construction by Holtzman’s
family-owned company with
a 100-year history and a com-
mitment to art programming
in its structures. The mural
adds to the artist’s lengthy
resume, which lists represen-
tation in numerous exhibits in
and out of the country as well
as more than two dozen public
and private collections.
Among the out-of-state
museums that hold Fishman’s
work are the Miami Art
Museum, Columbus Museum
of Art in Ohio and Stamford
Museum and Nature Center in
Connecticut.
Fishman, who earned her
master’s degree at Yale and
taught in the graduate pro-
gram at the College of New
Rochelle and the Maryland

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June 14 • 2018