Joseph Gies

Born in Detroit Michigan in 1860, Joseph Gies received early training form Detroit artist Julis Melchers, and later studied at the Nation Academy of Design, the Cooper Union School of Art, and the Students Artist League. In 1883 he went to Paris, where he studied under Adolphe Bougereau and Tony Robert-Fleury. He spent 1884-1889 in Munich at the Royal Academy. He returned to Detroit in 1890 and joined the faculty of the Art School of Detroit Museum of Art, continuing in that position until 1895. When the museum school closed in 1898, Gies and Francis Petrus Paulus founded the Detroit Academy of Art (also known as the Detroit School of Fine Arts). Gies retired from teaching in 1910, but his home on Adams Avenue, overlooking Grand Circus Park. His works are held in the permanent collections the Detroit Historical Museum, the Detroit Institute of the Arts, the Broad Museum, the University of Michigan Art Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Modern Art.