The Oil Paintings in the Department Store: The Robe and Racialized Tastemaking in 1950s Detroit

Abstract

Abstract:This essay examines the promotion of Twentieth Century–Fox’s production of The Robe (1953)—which exhibited Dean Cornwell’s oil paintings in local department stores in Detroit—in relation to the city’s sociocultural context and racial tensions. It argues that ongoing issues in the city such as property ownership, racialized topographical boundaries, and class aspiration can be traced across Detroit’s film culture in the postwar period, particularly in the burgeoning middlebrow culture of materialistic consumption. The promotional campaign’s use of art exhibitions in department stores represented a significant moment for new ideas about class, culture, and racial identity in the city, contributing to the formation of the white suburban middle class and functioning as an example of racialized tastemaking. Accounts of this postwar cultural shift, particularly as it pertained to film culture, have underemphasized the importance of racial identity and exclusion to such formations. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach that integrates film history, material culture studies, and cultural history, this essay uses the Cornwell exhibition as a case study for understanding the impact of racial tensions on class identity in 1950s Detroit.