It is often cited as one of the most significant privately assembled art collections, alongside the Barnes Foundation and the J. Paul Getty Museum. During an earlier school board election, the de Menils helped launch the political career of Mickey Leland, a young black militant from Houston's grubby Fifth Ward, who is now serving his fourth term in the United States Congress. [35], De Menil's final project was a 1996 commission of three site-specific light installations by Minimalist sculptor Dan Flavin for Richmond Hall, a former Weingarten's grocery store in Houston. It was there that the de Menils began their institutional involvement with art. 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. THE DE MENIL FAMILY: THE MEDICI OF MODERN ART, https://www.nytimes.com/1986/05/18/magazine/the-de-menil-family-the-medici-of-modern-art.html. Coordinated by civil rights activist and later U.S. She grew up, the middle sister of three, watching her physicist father, Conrad Schlumberger, struggle to perfect his invention, an electric measuring device that disclosed the location of oil deposits. Congressman Mickey Leland, it was one of the first racially integrated art shows in the United States.[28]. Dia was founded in New York City in 1974 by Philippa de Menil, Heiner Friedrich, and Helen Winkler to help artists achieve visionary projects that might not otherwise be realized because of scale or scope. ''I was interested in art, but shy and out of contact with the art world. ''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. Seven years later, John joined Schlumberger Ltd. Their backgrounds were very different. Thus, the 657,829 shares owned by Georges de Menil and his wife and children, now worth about $20 million, have shrunk in value from the $57 million they were worth at the stock's high. ''Before that it was the old Bourbon alliance, blue-collar whites and white-collar businessmen. Sheikha. Dominique de Menil, the daughter of Conrad Schlumberger and his wife, Louise Delpech, was born in Paris on March 23, 1908. [1], She was born in 1947 into a socially committed, eclectic French Catholic family in Houston, Texas. But I think it will turn out superbly.''. Institute of Religion Accepts Controversial Broken Obelisk.. By the 1960s the de Menils had gravitated toward the major American post-war movements of abstract expressionism, pop art, and minimalism. ''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. They maintained residences in New York and France but settled in Houston, where John would eventually become president of Schlumberger Overseas (Middle and Far East) and Schlumberger Surenco (Latin America), two branches of the Houston-based oilfield services corporation. John's assertiveness made itself felt even as he lay dying of cancer, when he prepared a scenario for his funeral. The foundation operates Dia:Beacon (est. It also features temporary exhibitions. There, surreal-looking dress dummies and women assistants with pins in their mouths share space with art by Cy Twombly, Yves Klein, Ralph Humphrey and John Chamberlain as well as furniture by the late Charles James, Dominique's favorite dress designer. ''I went to breakfast, lunch and dinner at their house and met every important person they knew. (One takes off one's shoes on entering.) ''The funny thing is, how it came out in me after my parents' collecting,'' says Philippa, a fresh-faced blonde who has her mother's unpretentious manner and good looks. News Dia Sues Dia: Founders Try to Stop Art Auction. ''It gives us a strong family feeling.''. I wanted a wooden one.''. At that point, the de Menils began to drift away from the museum. There was a moral obligation to get involved with their involvements. At the sale, Dominique bought a Barnett Newman and Adelaide picked up her first de Kooning.) After a substantial inheritance from their Schlumberger grandmother, nothing more would be forthcoming, the children were given to understand. [25], The de Menils had originally made plans to build the Rothko Chapel in 1964 when Dominique de Menil commissioned a suite of meditative paintings by Mark Rothko for an ecumenical chapel intended for the University of St. Thomas as a space of dialogue and reflection between faiths. 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. The day and hour were set, with Dominique's agreement. You can look up the words in the phrase individually using these links: philippa? Designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano, co-creator of the high-tech Pompidou Center in Paris, the museum is so favorably looked upon by Houston bigwigs that more than half of its building costs are being met by local money. Plans called for Bob Dylan to sing at the service, but he was unavailable, and a tape was played of John's Dylan favorites. THE DE MENILS' IN-volvement in the Houston art world began in the 1940's - an inevitable consequence of Father Couturier's evangelism. On the other hand, she can be imperious. Today, Dominique says, her relationship with the still-small institution is ''very friendly. ''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. Adelaide wished that the starkly modern house, designed by the then-Mies-disciple Philip Johnson, could be like everyone else's. [1] At Rice, the de Menils also cultivated their interest in film, working with such noted filmmakers as Roberto Rossellini, who made several trips to Houston to teach Rice University students and create television documentaries. De Maria had traveled to Santa Barbara for his mother's 100th birthday in early June; however, he went on to . [1] She also published articles on film technology in the French journal La revue du cinma.[4]. While the two had mutual feelings for art and social problems, Dominique was reticent and understated, John was ebullient, opinionated, action-oriented. Heiner Friedrich and Fariha Friedrich (formerly Philippa de Menil), who 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. ''Mother lives at two levels,'' says Georges. 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. 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. In 1986, de Menil deepened her involvement in social causes, establishing the Carter-Menil Human Rights Foundation with former president Jimmy Carter to "promote the protection of human rights throughout the world". But we are definitely a collection of people very much influenced by John and Dominique. 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. Photography became an important component of the collection, which includes works by Eve Arnold, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Danny Lyon, Hans Namuth, and Eve Sonneman. ''I get that so much from my mother - decide what you're aiming at and strike out after it. .''. [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. The reunited family went to Houston, then the American headquarters for the company. ''In the here and now, with great acuity and effectiveness; but also, at a moment's notice, in the Kingdom of Benin or the Byzantine Empire.'' 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. An economist, with a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he has taught at Princeton and is founding director of the economics research division of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris, where he is a professor and where he spends time teaching each year. Impressed with Leland, John de Menil took him under his wing and brought the young man into his own social and artistic circles, ''sophisticating a rough diamond,'' as Leland puts it. Called ''well logging,'' the process became the basic asset of the company, eventually proving indispensable to oil companies around the world. The two met at a ball in Versailles, and were married in 1931, when Dominique was 22 and John was 27 and working in a Paris bank. He remembers a rainy night in Paris, when he was ill with a cold but had a manuscipt to deliver to the noted anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss. 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. Apr 18, 2018 1:37PM. Designed by the architect Charles Gwathmey and built at a reported cost of $6 million, the house - called ''Toad Hall'' by its owner - is a fantasy version of a luxury ocean liner, with a three-story greenhouse, screening room, game room, exercise salon, wine cellar and the obligatory swimming pool. Until very recently, Christophe also had a sizable house in East Hampton, but it burned down during Hurricane Gloria last fall. Friedrich and his then wife Philippa de Menil, together with Helen Winkler, established the Dia Art Foundation in 1973. Photo by Michael Schmelling . And then, you can move in and we can move out.' 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. The Menil Foundation is contributing not only the art but about $8 million. An 11th-century abbey revamped during the 18th century, the chateau has perhaps 100 rooms. They ultimately amassed more than 17,000 paintings, sculptures, decorative objects, prints, drawings, photographs, and rare books. [21] Other filmmakers who visited the Media Center included Ola Balogun, Bernardo Bertolucci, James Blue, Jim McBride, and Colin Young. Not helpful? 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. De Menil, who lived in Houston until she was 12 and was raised Catholic, has been a practicing Muslim for more than 30 years, and is now known as Sheikha Fariha al-Jerrahi, having been officially . She spoke at the Byzantine Fresco Chapel, inaugurating the Passionate Voices series, celebrating the 10th anniversary. Philippa de Menil New York. And she goes on collecting - though at a much slower pace, she says, because prices have risen so high. Few philanthropists of the 20th century contributed more to the American art world than Dominique and John de Menil. He later realized who had delivered the manuscript and wrote her a note.'' Philippa De Menil Bio Details Full name Philippa De Menil Gender Female Age 71 (approx.) To supple-ment the scanty family income, John dropped out of school to work in a bank. [7], The de Menils were particularly interested in modern European art, and a core strength of the collection was the many Cubist, Surrealist, and other Modernist works they acquired. Most of the land and houses within a six-block radius, quietly assembled by John, are under de Menil ownership. They established the university's Media Center in 1967. ''They came as intellectuals to an intellectual void,'' says Isaac Arnold Jr., chairman of Houston's Museum of Fine Arts and also of Quintana Petroleum. The chapel, opened in 1971, is an all-faith center, a ''no man's land of God,'' Dominique says. BUT, AS DOMINIQUE likes to point out, she and John didn't start out rich. "Les divers procds du film parlant". In an effort to provide a strong art history curriculum in Houston for students and adults, they founded the art department at the University of St. Thomas in 1959, inviting Jermayne MacAgy to teach courses and curate exhibitions held at Jones Hall. Like the other children, he realizes fully that his parents are a difficult act to follow. She badly needed a religion.''. [1], The Menil campus also includes the Byzantine Fresco Chapel. The caller hung up. They hated the result, and hid it away. At the age of 29, she met her mentor and guide on the path of Sufism upon his first visit to the Americas, Sheikh Muzaffer zak k al-Jerrahi of Istanbul. She has organized a forthcoming book ''Men's Lives'' - with specially commissioned photographs, and a text by Peter Matthiessen -about them. Joining the bravely vanguard Contemporary Arts Association, they made their presence felt, producing a major Van Gogh show and staging exhibitions of work by Max Ernst, Joan Miro and Alexander Calder. (5) Philippa (Anne Caroline Philippa de Mnil) (born June 13, 1947) - A co-founder of the Dia Art Foundation. [22], Their most controversial action on behalf of civil rights was their offer of Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk as a partial gift to the city of Houston in 1969, on the condition that it be dedicated to the recently assassinated Martin Luther King Jr.[23] The city refused the gift, sparking a controversial debate[24] that ended only when the de Menils purchased the sculpture themselves and placed it in front of the newly completed Rothko Chapel. When John de Menil walked into Alexander Iolas Gallery in Paris one day in 1964, Jean Tinguely's moving, noisy sculptures stole part of . With their involvements in a bank very different, lunch and dinner at their house and every. 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