[6] The original building, designed by Paul Philippe Cret, is flanked by north and south wings with the white marble as the main exterior material for the entire structure.

[9] Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry cycle of frescoes span the upper and lower levels to surround the central grand marble court of the museum.

The breadth of the collection includes American artists including John James Audubon, George Bellows, George Caleb Bingham, Alexander Calder, Mary Cassatt, Dale Chihuly, Frederic Edwin Church, Thomas Cole, John Singleton Copley, Robert Colescott, Leon Dabo, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Thomas Eakins, Childe Hassam, Robert Henri, Winslow Homer, George Inness, Martin Lewis, Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles Willson Peale, Rembrandt Peale, Tom Phardel, Duncan Phyfe, Hiram Powers, Sharon Que, Frederic Remington, Paul Revere, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, John Singer Sargent, John French Sloan, Tony Smith, Marylyn Dintenfass, Merton Simpson, Gilbert Stuart, Yves Tanguy, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Andy Warhol, William T. Williams, Anne Wilson, Andrew Wyeth, and James McNeill Whistler.

The self-portrait of Vincent van Gogh and The Window by Henri Matisse were purchased in 1922 and were the first paintings by these two artists to enter an American public collection.

Later important acquisitions include Hans Holbein the Younger's Portrait of a Woman, James Abbott McNeill Whistler's Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, and works by Paul Cézanne, Eugène Delacroix, Auguste Rodin, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux and François Rude.

German Expressionism was embraced and collected early on by the DIA, with works by Heinrich Campendonk, Franz Marc, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Max Beckmann, Karl Hofer, Emil Nolde, Lovis Corinth, Ernst Barlach, Georg Kolbe, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paula Modersohn-Becker, and Max Pechstein in the collection.

Non-German artists in the Expressionist movement include Oskar Kokoschka, Wassily Kandinsky, Chaïm Soutine, Amedeo Modigliani, Giorgio de Chirico, and Edvard Munch.

In December 2010, the museum debuted a new permanent gallery with special collections of hand, shadow, and string puppets along with programmable lighting and original backgrounds.

This exhibit includes the following: Altar Mary by Petah Coyne, Strange Früt: Rock Apocrypha by Destroy All Monsters Collective, Traces of Then and Now by Lorella Di Cintio and Jonsara Ruth, Fast Forward, Play Back by Ronit Eisenbach and Peter Sparling, Riches of Detroit: Faces of Detroit by Deborah Grotfeldt and Tricia Ward, Open House by Tyree Guyton, A Persistence of Memory by Michael Hall, Relics by Scott Hocking and Clinton Snider, Blackout by Mike Kelley, Voyageurs by Joseph Wesner.

This exhibit includes work from Joshua Johnson, Robert Scott Duncanson, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Augusta Savage, Benny Andrews, Betye Saar, Richard Hunt, Sam Gilliam, and Lorna Simpson.

Allie McGhee, Naomi Dickerson, Lester Johnson, Shirley Woodson, and Charles McGee are some of the Detroit artists that were included in the installation.

Some works created by Claudel that will be displayed include Sakuntala, The Waltz, La Petite Châtelain, The Age of Maturity, The Wave, and Vertumnus and Pomona.

Work by African American artists during the 19th and 20th centuries including Henry Ossawa Tanner, Edmonia Lewis, Elizabeth Catlett, Aaron Douglas, Romare Bearden, and Jacob Lawrence will be displayed as well.

King, Johnny Cash and June Carter, Willie Nelson, Pete Seeger, Etta James, Dolly Parton, Beck and Bruce Springsteen, Eminem, Aretha Franklin, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, and The White Stripes.

This exhibit contains photographs of landscapes, Pueblo Indians, mountain views, along with portraits of his friends Georgia O'Keeffe, John Marin, and Edward Weston.

Some pieces that will be displayed are Michelangelo's double-sided chalk and pen and ink drawing of 1508 showing decoration schemes for the Sistine Chapel ceiling; Russet Landscape by Edgar Degas from the 1890s; and Wheels by Charles Sheeler in 1939.

[44] In 1922, Horace Rackham donated a casting of Auguste Rodin's sculpture, The Thinker, acquired from a German collection, to the museum where it was exhibited while the new building was under construction.

[46] William Edward Kapp, architect for the firm of Smith, Hinchman & Grylls has been credited with interior design work on the Detroit Institute of Art.

With the success of the arts, and the booming auto industry, families were flocking to the city; pushing for the need to expand the vision that Scripps had originally dreamed, a new building was raised and the DIA was born.

It as under Valentiner's leadership as director that, the museum flush with money from a booming city and wealthy patrons, the size and quality of the DIA's collections grew significantly.

The DIA became the first U.S. museum to acquire a van Gogh and Matisse in 1922 and Valentiner's relationship with German expressionist led to significant holdings of early Modernist art.

At his death in 1970, he bequeathed a large European art collection, which included works by Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Edgar Degas, Georges Seurat, Henri Rousseau, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Constantin Brâncuși, important works of German Expressionism, a large collection of African art, and an endowment for future acquisitions for the museum.

[61] Montiel de Shuman, a Mexican woman, published an essay online announcing her resignation, citing "Spirit of the Dead Watching" as an example of the museum's sub-par engagement with nonwhite audiences.

[62] Montiel de Shuman claimed the artworks' label did not address the possibility that the artist sexually abused her, gave her syphilis, and colonized her home.

Montiel de Shuman, in an email to the Detroit Free Press, said "[I] asked how the DIA was preparing front-line staff to handle conversations around power dynamics, colonial abuse, and sexual assault - particularly of minors.

Before coming to the DIA he was senior curator at the Meadows Museum at SMU and prior to that an assistant professor of art history at the Complutense University of Madrid.

[66] Salort-Pons' Spanish origin has made critics believe he is unable to understand and tackle the complexity of issues surrounding race, inclusivity, and representation in the United States.

"[69] Besides holding major art exhibitions inside the museum's 1,150-seat theatre and annual formal entertainment fundraising galas such as Les Carnavel des ArtStars in November,[70][71] other Detroit Institute of Arts coordinated events include the annual "Fash Bash", a leading corporate sponsored fashion event, featuring celebrities and models that showcase the latest fashion trends, typically held in the Renaissance Center's Winter Garden, the Fox Theatre, or at the Detroit Institute of Arts theatre in August to celebrate Detroit Fashion Week.

[72][73] A 2012 survey showed 79 percent of the institute's annual visitors lived in one of the three surrounding counties Wayne (which includes Detroit), Macomb, and Oakland.

In 2021, the current Director, Salort-Pons, and the chairman of the DIA Board of Directors, Eugene Gargaro, published a joint Opinion piece in Hyperallergic where they noted that the millage had created a unique funding model that allowed that museum to continue to fully employ their entire staff during the pandemic, where many other museums throughout the country were forced the lay off and furlough hundreds of employees.