But Heiner lives in a dream. John's assertiveness made itself felt even as he lay dying of cancer, when he prepared a scenario for his funeral. The de Menils' Catholic faith, especially their interest in Father Yves Marie Joseph Congar's teachings on ecumenism, would become crucial to the development of their collecting ethos in the coming decades. "The de Menil Family: The Medici of Modern Art". The foundation's extravagant expenditures have necessitated a family rescue effort. I think they're inspired.'' THE DE MENILS' civil-rights activities earned them epithets ranging from '''radical chic'' to ''Communist.'' The Barnett Newman ''Broken Obelisk,'' made of Cor-Ten steel, stands 26 feet high in a reflecting pool that faces the chapel's entrance. Photography became an important component of the collection, which includes works by Eve Arnold, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Danny Lyon, Hans Namuth, and Eve Sonneman. And she was surrounded by accomplished relatives. She has organized a forthcoming book ''Men's Lives'' - with specially commissioned photographs, and a text by Peter Matthiessen -about them. They established the university's Media Center in 1967. They have four children, and collect modern and contemporary abstract art, including works by David Smith, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler and Jules Olitski. On the other hand, she can be imperious. As it turned out, her parents, thanks to their holdings in Schlumberger, the giant multinational oil-field services company, were en route to developing one of the world's largest private art collections, noted today for its examples of Cubism, Surrealism, African sculpture, Mediterranean antiquities and contemporary works. Born 1947 Start a FameChain Trivia Philippa De Menil Family View Philippa De Menil's Family Tree and History, Ancestry and Genealogy French expats who left Paris for the United States during World War II, the de Menils were the heirs to multiple fortunesincluding Dominique's family's booming oil equipment company . For starters, in a locale where the ideal home was a formal white-pillared mansion, the de Menils got Philip Johnson to do them a sprawling, one-level house. Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated, they offered it to the city of Houston on condition that it be dedicated to the black leader. ''I went to breakfast, lunch and dinner at their house and met every important person they knew. To supple-ment the scanty family income, John dropped out of school to work in a bank. The middle child is Georges, an elegant and articulate - if slightly stuffy -scholar of 45 who more or less oversees the family's financial matters. The children and their mother also occasionally drop in on Val-Richer, the vast estate in Normandy passed down by Schlumberger ancestors. The German art dealer Heiner Friedrich; his wife, Philippa de Menil (daughter of the noted philanthropist Dominique de Menil); and art historian Helen Winkler founded Dia Art Foundation in 1974. Friedrich has exhibited works by Blinky Palermo, Walter De Maria, Donald Judd, La Monte Young, Andy Warhol, Michael Heizer, and Joseph Beuys, among others in his galleries in Germany, but became less interested in short term gallery installations and through Dia began to collect, and support majo Inevitably, John's impulse to control brought him into conflict with other trustees, notably John Blaffer, son of a powerful Houston family. Dominique, who was courted by other cities, says that the museum is in Houston because ''I was so encouraged here.'' In fact, its long, low bulk looks more like, say, the suburban branch of an elegant department store. Perhaps the closest of the children to her late father, who was an outspoken liberal drawn to minority causes, Adelaide has developed an interest in the lives of the ''bonackers,'' the vanishing tribe of fishermen and their families native to the eastern tip of Long Island. Described by another friend as a ''warm, impulsive, kind person who is something of a mark,'' Christophe, in designing costumes for Wilson's theater pieces, discovered a talent for inventing clothes, and has recently set up as a couturier. Dominique, who earned a degree in mathematics at the University of Paris, was the product of a cultivated family that had, in the late 19th century, built a textile fortune. [1], The Menil campus also includes the Byzantine Fresco Chapel. she subsidized a lobbying effort on their behalf. [1], She was born in 1947 into a socially committed, eclectic French Catholic family in Houston, Texas. They had a foreign accent, and political views that for Texas were extremely liberal. An ongoing project that seeks to catalogue and study the depiction of individuals of African descent in Western art, it is now under the aegis of Harvard University. Behind that fragile, otherworldly facade is a complex person of very ambitious reach.''. Following the outbreak of World War II and the Nazi occupation of France, the de Menils emigrated from Paris to the United States of America. [1] She was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1986. De Menil's largesse had created a kind of refuge from the speculative market in art then taking shape in New York, and a new canon of monumental, spiritually charged epics: a SoHo gallery floor buried, permanently, wi th black ear th; a hollowed-out volcano, transformed into a science-fictional archaeo-astronomical laboratory for perceptual flight; a Promethean bed of nails poking dangerously into the desert sky, awaiting some gargantuan penitent. After being met with increasing resistance by the more traditional Basilian clergy at the University of St. Thomas, in 1969 the de Menils moved the art departmentincluding the art history facultyand Media Center to Rice University, where they founded the Institute for the Arts to manage the exhibition program at Rice Museum. she asked, in genuine surprise. A big show of the family's art collections was held at the Grand Palais in Paris two years ago. The building was designed by architect Francois de Menil and mimics the original Lysi chapel. As modernists, they recognized the profound formal and spiritual connections between contemporary works of art and the arts of ancient and indigenous cultures, broadening their collection to include works from classical Mediterranean and Byzantine cultures, as well as objects from Africa, Oceania, and the Pacific Northwest. The foundation operates Dia:Beacon (est. The gray clapboard of the museum is in keeping with the small, traditional timber-frame homes -some used as foundation offices, others rented to friends, associates and various locals - that surround it. [10] They bought more than two hundred pieces from Klejman's New York Gallery. German gallery owner Heiner Friedrich, Fariha Friedrich (ne de Menil) and Helen Winkler Fosdick founded Dia. At that point, the de Menils began to drift away from the museum. John listened patiently to the telephone tirade and then said, ''Listen, my friend, why don't you come to my house for a drink? Kahn did produce some preliminary drawings, but the project was suspended in 1973 after John de Menil's and Kahn's deaths less than a year apart. (As one Texan commented, ''The de Menils have done so much good with so little money,'' pointing out that their wealth was ''really peanuts, compared to some fortunes down here.'') Looking back, I suppose we were too ambitious, and they felt overwhelmed.'' Their collection was motivated by their shared interest in the many ways individuals over different cultures and eras reveal through art their understanding of what it means to be human.[7]. Soon, Rice was a beehive of arts activities. Inheritance (oil) 20th-century art Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Overview Newswire RobbReport For example, use He remembers admiring a photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson at Adelaide's house. In 1930 she met the banker Jean de Mnil (who later anglicized his name to John de Menil), and they were married the next year. In a stronghold of segregation, they not only backed civil rights and Martin Luther King, but entertained blacks at dinner. ''He reminds me of my father,'' she says, ''with his strong idealism and willingness to undertake certain things that others wouldn't. A more reticent, but still attention-getting, project is Adelaide's 40-acre housing complex, set in a former potato field not far from Francois's establishment. ''What I inherited was my mother's craving. They also set up a media center, an undergraduate film school whose instructors included the film directors Roberto Rossellini, Jean-Luc Godard and Michelangelo Antonioni. The minute the cops arrive, they form ranks. ''We didn't really buy art, because we didn't have the money and we didn't think of it,'' says Dominique, whose scientist father considered spending money on art frivolous. de? He later realized who had delivered the manuscript and wrote her a note.'' Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. She also established the scar Romero Award, named after the slain El Salvadoran bishop. (Brought up a Protestant, she converted to Catholicism to marry John.) She received direct transmission from him in 1980. The Menil Foundation is contributing not only the art but about $8 million. You can look up the words in the phrase individually using these links: philippa? Her second husband is. Indeed, shuttling among residences in Houston, New York and Paris, Dominique has a heavy agenda. Articles in Zest section The Menil Opens.. Both born in Houston - their three elders were born in France - they grew up in the rebellious 60's and seem to have come to terms more uneasily than the others with the Schlumberger aura. (Box, page 38.) philippa de menilare there really purple owls. Easily the most spectacular residence is Francois's, built a few years ago on seven acres of expensive East Hampton beachfront as a vacation retreat from his handsome Manhattan apartment. Over the course of nearly 20 years, beginning in the late 1940's, they set up a full-fledged art and art history department, hiring -and paying for - teachers, researchers and what one of the former de-scribes as ''others with whom they have loose and flexible arrangements.'' In 1974, Fr But as a friend notes, ''She is maybe not so much a collector as a catalyst who makes things happen.'' Both pupils received new Sufi names. Why Not Dedicate Art to King, De Menil Asks City Council., Richard, Paul. Hopps, a well known presence in the field of contemporary art, comes from California and made a reputation early on as director of the esteemed Pasadena Museum of Art. ''Not only were they considered radical, but really different. There was a moral obligation to get involved with their involvements. ''When they didn't control things, they stepped aside,'' says Philippe de Montebello, now director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who took the job in Houston after Sweeney. Date of birth 1947 Birth place Houston, USA Philippa De Menil Siblings Philippa De Menil Age 71 (approx.) Coordinated by civil rights activist and later U.S. Expansive main-floor displays will be made up of works in the storage areas, with space set aside for the spectacular theme shows that Dominique and the museum's director, Walter Hopps, have been doing together for years. And then, you can move in and we can move out.' Its basis was a device that was lowered by cable into the ground to measure the electrical resistance of formations in the earth. By the 1960s the de Menils had gravitated toward the major American post-war movements of abstract expressionism, pop art, and minimalism. Dominique's way of not always paying full attention to this world has been transmitted to some of her offspring. In 1980, the woman she was had become a Sufi dervish named Fariha al-Jerrahi, and when the house of Dia fell, she moved on. The work these artists made changed, or at least questioned, the nature of art: what it. So serious, in fact, was the recent plight of Dia that Dominique asked her son Georges, a trustee of Philippa's inheritance, to help. Like the Rockefellers, the de Menils are distinguished by the variety and scope of their art interests. You were sharing in the great adventure of making a work of art that was maybe too crazy to realize in any other way.'' The Dan Flavin installation consists of two horizontal green fluorescent lights on the eastern and western sides of the building's exterior, two sets of diagonal white lights on the foyer walls, and a large work in the main interior space featuring pink, yellow, green, blue, and ultraviolet lights. 1974 by art dealer Heiner Friedrich and his wife, art patron Philippa de Menil. De Maria had traveled to Santa Barbara for his mother's 100th birthday in early June; however, he went on to . "I dreamed of preserving some of the intimacy I had enjoyed with works of art," she wrote. '', AT 78, DOMINIQUE IS A HANDSOME WOMAN OF frail, unassuming presence, whose ''spiritual'' mien and austere garb evoke the image of a medieval saint. The theoretical thrust of ''The Image of the Black'' reflects Dominique more than John, whose interests were apt to find more direct expression. It serves the vi-sion of a place ''for people in search of peace, meditation and a more intense consciousness of our time.'' Giovannini, Joseph. John shot from the hip. The founders had . As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. [1] She also published articles on film technology in the French journal La revue du cinma.[4]. Ever since, Dia's mission has been to commission, support, and present site-specific long-term installations and single-artists exhibitions to the public. An 11th-century abbey revamped during the 18th century, the chateau has perhaps 100 rooms. In 1949 they commissioned the architect Philip Johnson to design their home in the River Oaks neighborhood in Houston. Yet these holdings, together with those of the nearby Museum of Fine Arts and the Contemporary Arts Museum, should boost Houston's cultural status to that of a world-class center for the visual arts. The building, primly sheathed in what one Houstonian calls ''Protestant gray clapboard'' (probably a first for a museum in this country), has on the ground floor exhibition spaces set in a landscaped garden. [12] The de Menils filled their home with art and hosted many of the leading artists, scientists, civil rights activists, and intellectuals of the day. . Though designed by one of the architects of the flamboyant Pompidou Center in Paris, which wears its plumbing on its facade, it bears no resemblance to that outrageous folly. [8][9] De Menil credited dealer and adviser John Klejman with shaping their tastes in African and Oceanic objects, saying that he "made buying African art very tempting". GROWING UP IN HOUSTON, ADELAIDE DE MENIL was embarrassed to bring her friends to the art-filled home of her parents, Dominique and John de Menil. Says Dominique, ''The idea of the foundation was marvelous, and they've done great things. But we are definitely a collection of people very much influenced by John and Dominique. Hickey-Robertson. For several artists besides Judd, houses with studio or living arrangements were provided along with annual stipends, and museums were set up for the work of others. Each is not only glamorously housed in Manhattan, most of them on the Upper East Side, but also has one or two lavish residences elsewhere -Paris, Texas, the Hamptons. [33], The nearby Cy Twombly Gallery, opened in 1995, houses more than thirty of Twombly's paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. [8] Over the years the family enjoyed close personal friendships with many of the artists whose work they collected, including Victor Brauner, Max Ernst, Jasper Johns, Yves Klein, Ren Magritte, Robert Rauschenberg, Dorothea Tanning, and Andy Warhol. Georges and Lois de Menil have not lagged behind. He wanted me to be exposed to every aspect of their life that would give me a chance to do things for my community. Francois, who stopped making films (''I was dissatisfied with what I was doing and felt a change would be good''), is still elated over his admission to The Cooper Union, achieved in part by hiring special tutors to prepare him in necessary disciplines, such as mathematics. She recently bought another place near Sag Harbor, and in Manhattan she has a splendid three-story former carriage house with a swimming pool on the ground floor, redone with help from the Los Angeles architect Frank Gehry and the ''light sculptor'' Douglas Wheeler. She began to collect work by contemporary Americans even before her parents did, and exerted considerable influence on their acquisitions in the field. key biscayne triathlon 2022 Her ideas are defended by her son-the-architectural-student. Today, while Dominique still administers the Institute for the Arts, and contributes to such programs as fellowships for graduate students in art history, the de Menil presence there has shrunk considerably. Francois's taste in art is more of a mixed bag than Christophe's, ranging from works by Matisse, de Chirico, Picasso and Rothko to a flock of life-size fake sheep by the French artists Francois-Xavier and Claude Lalanne. 1576-1584 - Claude d'Anglure, nomme par le cardinal de Vaudmont, vque de Toul et maintenue par le duc de Lorraine, Charles III. Institute of Religion Accepts Controversial Broken Obelisk.. ''', Dominique's craving found expression during the couple's frequent visits to New York in the 40's and 50's, where they met Father Marie-Alain Couturier, a French Dominican priest who spent the war years there. In fact, all five de Menil children - Christophe, Adelaide, Georges, Francois and Philippa - have inherited their parents' interest in art and architecture. Dominique emphasizes that it's a very ''personal'' assemblage, ''idiosyncratic,'' with major gaps. Sheikh Muzaffer Ozak's most prominent disciples and successors in North America were Tosun Bayrak, Lex Hixon, and Philippa de Menil. Philippa - called ''Phip'' by intimates - the mother of two, is probably the closest heir to her mother's ''spirituality,'' and has her good looks and unpretentious manner. With Francois and Georges, she is also making a film about her father, who carried on his venturesome art and community activities while functioning as a key executive in the development of Schlumberger Ltd. ''She is painfully shy, but generous and thoughtful,'' a friend says. Later, attending classes at night, he got a degree from the University of Paris, adding other degrees in political science and law before taking his compulsory army service in the Rif Mountains of Morocco during some tribal wars - and falling in love for life with Africa. Seven years later, John joined Schlumberger Ltd. Their backgrounds were very different. ''Wasn't I there?'' [2][3][4][5] Sheikh Muzaffer also gave direct transmission to fellow American dervish Sheikh Nur al-Anwar al-Jerrahi, who envisioned a radical and illumined path of the heart which he called Universal Islam. ''Dominque said, 'I'll take it,' and she bundled herself in a tacky fur coat and went trudging through the rain, arriving at Levi-Strauss's looking like a drowned rat. Spurred in part by the lack of a real arts community in Houston,[13] in the 1950s and 1960s the de Menils promoted modern art through exhibitions held at the Contemporary Arts Association (later the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston), such as Max Ernst's first solo exhibition in the United States, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, to which they gave important gifts of art. Eventually, the de Menils and their entourage became so much a part of the St. Thomas scene that ''it became difficult to operate without stepping on one of their toes,'' says Father Patrick O. Braden, president of the college at the time. Soon the couple was on a collecting spree, venturing from Cezanne to Braque to Picasso, then - under the influence of the dealer Alexander Iolas - heavily into Surrealism. Dominique de Menil (ne Schlumberger; March 23, 1908 December 31, 1997) was a French-American art collector, philanthropist, founder of the Menil Collection and an heiress to the Schlumberger Limited oil-equipment fortune. Eventually - despite their contributions of time and art - their ambitious projects brought them into conflict with budget-minded trustees. The issue was really the kind of institution St. Thomas was to be - would it maintain its Catholic identity or would it become a secular college? Following Ozak's death, the tariqa was split into the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Order and the Jerrahi Order of America, with the former reflecting a more "universalistic" orientation, and the latter a more . She spoke at the Byzantine Fresco Chapel, inaugurating the Passionate Voices series, celebrating the 10th anniversary. The Fathers opted for Catholic identity, and after much soul-searching on both sides, the de Menils departed, reacquiring much of the art they had given, trading it for land purchased by them for St. Thomas's expansion. A good part of the Menil Collection comprises objects of African and other tribal art, and the foundation began, in 1961, a long-range research project, ''The Image of the Black in Western Art.'' TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. ''If only my father could see him now,'' his sister Adelaide has remarked proudly. For the marriage, Dominique converted to John's Catholicism, a move that at first shocked her clannish family. Early in 1969, the de Menils transferred their patronage from St. Thomas to Rice University, a secular, science-oriented school then beginning to branch out into the liberal arts. Adelaide, two years younger and known as Addie to the family, is a photographer, and travels with Ted Carpenter on a far-flung anthropological and collecting beat. At the suggestion of the Houston designer Howard Barnstone, who might be called the de Menils' architect-in-residence, the houses have mostly been painted a uniform gray, so that the museum and the bungalows together have the aspect of a small, but by no means unpleasant, company town. Explains William Camfield, whom the de Menils brought over as professor of art history from St. Thomas, ''At Rice, the de Menils said, 'Let's see if it works and if you like it. The city's negativism toward the piece, however, served as a goad to the active de Menil political conscience, according to Fred Hofheinz, a young white liberal who was elected Mayor of the volatile city in 1973 with heavy de Menil backing. When they arrived there from Paris in the early 1940's, they were not yet as wealthy as they would become, but they were almost too interesting. [14] They were instrumental in the Contemporary Arts Association's decision to hire Jermayne MacAgy as its director; she curated several groundbreaking exhibitions, including "The Sphere of Mondrian" and "Totems Not Taboo: An Exhibition of Primitive Art. The artists previously collaborated with the Dia Art Foundation, which was founded by Philippa de Menil (Dominique and John's daughter), to realise their monumental immersive light installation. The de Menils often personally recruited faculty members for the departments and brought many renowned artists and art historians to Houston, including Marcel Duchamp, Roberto Matta, and James Johnson Sweeney, whom they convinced to serve as museum director for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston from 1961 to 1967. . Then you can see how a Communist lives.'' Initially the stated aim as written in its first report was to "plan, realise and maintain public projects of artists. More than 1,000 mourners, an international assemblage including a local contingent of Black Panthers - to whom John had given money for setting up a free children's breakfast program - turned out in a heavy rainstorm. The founders of the Dia Art Foundation have filed suit to stop the foundation from selling artworks in Dia's collection. And there is no question that Houston's cultural establishment takes the new museum quite seriously. The family was met in Havana by John, who - having joined Schlumberger in 1938 - had been in Rumania, overseeing Schlumberger operations there, as well as putting sand into the gear boxes of Rumanian trains carrying oil to Germany. 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