Steve Neavling
The Cass Café was a gathering place for artists, musicians, academics, and neighbors.
Cass Café is coming back — at least for the summer.
The Cass Corridor institution is reopening its doors for an art exhibition honoring the lives and work of Jim and Lucille Nawara, two longtime figures of Detroit’s creative community.
The show, Retrospective: A Life in Art, opens Saturday, June 21, with a public reception from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the original Cass Café location at 4620 Cass Ave.
A special preview for members of the detroit contemporary, the gallery presenting the exhibition, begins at 4 p.m. It will remain on view through the summer.
The retrospective breathes new life into a space that for three decades served as a cultural gathering place for Detroit’s artists, musicians, academics, and neighbors. Cass Café closed in July 2022 after nearly 30 years in business, leaving behind a legacy of good food and rotating art on the walls.
“This isn’t just a show,” curator Jill DeSandy said in a newsletter Friday. “It’s a homecoming. It’s a thank you. It’s a reminder of what art, community, and legacy mean in this city.”
The Nawaras, who will attend the opening, have been central figures in Detroit’s art scene for more than half a century. Their work, which includes paintings, prints, and drawings, is rooted in nature and memory. It has been exhibited at major institutions, including the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Jim Nawara, a professor emeritus at Wayne State University, is best known for his imagined aerial landscapes that explore geology and human impact on the land. Lucille Nawara, a longtime educator, artist, and former gallerist, draws from wooded environments in Michigan and New England, infusing her work with rhythm and light.
The couple raised their family immersed in the arts and often hiked together and turned their shared experiences into collaborative inspiration.
The reopening also marks a new chapter for Cass Café, which hasn’t hosted an event since closing nearly three years ago. The restaurant was once a cornerstone of Detroit’s art community, with a revolving door of local art on its walls.
“Cass Café is where we came to see art, have a conversation, argue about politics, and eat a bowl of lentil soup,” said Aaron Timlin, president of the Chalfonte Foundation and founder of detroit contemporary. “While plans for Cass Café’s future are still unfolding, we knew this was the perfect moment and the perfect place to celebrate two artists who helped shape Detroit’s creative spirit.”
More information is available at detroitcontemporary.org.
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