The citizens of Detroit built their first museum of art eight years before they built their first automobile back in 1896. They have been restyling both ever since. The first acquisition of the Detroit Institute of Arts was a $2,500 mythological oil called Reading the Story of Oenone, an object lesson in severe academia by U.S. Artist Francis D. Millet. Final proof that the museum subsequently made greater and more thorough acquisitions had to wait until last week when it opened its new $3,785,000 wing, doubling previous gallery space.
Before, space was so tight that Millet's Oenone hung in a...