And next month, Dominique de Menil, the family matriarch (her husband John, ne Jean, died in 1973), will see the completion in Houston of a new $21 million museum known as the Menil Collection, minus the de, in the interest of simplicity. Philippa de Menil New York. Though the building is not loved by some of Dominique's children, it is hoped that eventually the varied holdings of all of them will repose there, too. Essays and short texts describe the de Menils' collecting; their patronage of modern architecture; their promotion of film as an art form; their struggles . tion in 1974, run by Philippa de Menil, Heiner Friedrich and Helen Winkler. Sweeney, the de Menils' man, was eventually dismissed, partly because he questioned the attributions of works the Blaffer family proposed to donate. The most conservative of the children, and the most involved with family tradition, he uses - in France - his title, Baron, bestowed on the de Menil family by Napoleon. For example, use ''It was very grand and typically him,'' says Adelaide. ''The things I've collected resemble the sort of works my parents acquired, but maybe less broad in range and less expensive,'' he says, pointing out, on a hall wall, a favorite Braque painting of his father's given him by Dominique. The founders of the Dia Art Foundation have filed suit to stop the foundation from selling artworks in Dia's collection. THE NEW BUILDING will be close to another, even more un-Houstonian de Menil monument. ''What I inherited was my mother's craving. He later realized who had delivered the manuscript and wrote her a note.'' Philippa de Menil. His interest in architecture, he says, comes from his father and from working with Charles Gwathmey, who designed his East Hampton house. Articles in Zest section The Menil Opens.. Initially the stated aim as written in its first report was to "plan, realise and maintain public projects of artists. Ever since, Dia's mission has been to commission, support, and present site-specific long-term installations and single-artists exhibitions to the public. Heiner Friedrich and Fariha Friedrich (formerly Philippa de Menil), who Date of birth 1947 Birth place Houston, USA Philippa De Menil Siblings Philippa De Menil Age 71 (approx.) 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. 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. Giovannini, Joseph. 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. 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. Photography became an important component of the collection, which includes works by Eve Arnold, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Danny Lyon, Hans Namuth, and Eve Sonneman. Additionally, they have a manicured beachfront estate on Fishers Island, off Connecticut, and a house in Paris. The two youngest children are Francois, 41, and Philippa, 39. "Les divers procds du film parlant". ''You support artists by buying their work, not by making shrines to them.''. 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. Dominique's way of not always paying full attention to this world has been transmitted to some of her offspring. [1] She was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1986. Dia Art Foundation, American foundation that supports contemporary art and artists, est. The Menil Collection's discreet, low-key architecture befits its site in Montrose, a modest, socially mixed residential area of Houston. 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. [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. Dominique emphasizes that it's a very ''personal'' assemblage, ''idiosyncratic,'' with major gaps. philippa de menilare there really purple owls. They helped make a black militant who hated white people into a humanitarian.'' Later in his life, spending more time in New York, he would give lavish dinners for them and make the rounds -in a chauffeured limousine -of poetry readings, performances and parties, bestowing gifts on those who interested him. And Adelaide herself now has a home or two not like everyone else's, in which the art is at least as ''weird'' as that owned by her parents. 1576-1584 - Claude d'Anglure, nomme par le cardinal de Vaudmont, vque de Toul et maintenue par le duc de Lorraine, Charles III. [18] The de Menils supported Rice University astrophysics professor Donald D. Clayton for a two-week residence in Rome in JuneJuly 1970 for daily work with Rossellini,[19][20] conceiving a film about cosmology that did not advance to filming but that was published in 1975 as a personal memoir of a life discovering the universe. to find the word you're looking for. The conflict, as is the case with most de Menil disagreements, actually reveals the strength of the family's ties, according to Ted Carpenter: ''It's like an Italian family arguing over the pasta. Dominique, who was courted by other cities, says that the museum is in Houston because ''I was so encouraged here.'' 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. [1], John and Dominique de Menil began collecting art intensively in the 1940s, beginning with a purchase of Paul Czanne's 1895 painting Montagne (Mountain) in 1945. There are some who think they're crazy. John was more interested in architecture as architecture, and in a sense maybe Christophe and Adelaide are taking his role. You can't just expand and expand. Looking back, I suppose we were too ambitious, and they felt overwhelmed.'' She has organized a forthcoming book ''Men's Lives'' - with specially commissioned photographs, and a text by Peter Matthiessen -about them. She says now that she never imagined their acquisitions would someday fill a museum. Believing in art education and - though committed Catholics -religious ecumenism, they saw in St. Thomas, run by the Basilian Fathers, a chance to further the school and their causes. Philippa De Menil Bio Details Full name Philippa De Menil Gender Female Age 71 (approx.) John and Dominique de Menil also shared an interest in photography, inviting photographers to come to Houston to document events in the city and exhibit their work. 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. Back came a cable: ''BUY WHOLE SHOW.'' In return for her efforts, the Holy Bishopric of Cyprus allowed the works to remain in Houston on a 20-year loan. [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". 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. Fariha, born Philippa de Menil, . ''Not only were they considered radical, but really different. Of the siblings, she has also undertaken the most wildly ambitious involvement with the arts, as patron of the financially troubled Dia Foundation, whose aim is to support venturesome artists' projects of a nature or scale that make it difficult to obtain other backing. 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. ''But there were all these weird paintings hanging on the walls,'' she says. Born 1947 Start a FameChain Trivia Philippa De Menil Family View Philippa De Menil's Family Tree and History, Ancestry and Genealogy 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. 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 . Today, Dominique says, her relationship with the still-small institution is ''very friendly. 2003), the world's largest contemporary art museum, located in Beacon, N.Y. A converted factory, it contains unusually large unbroken spaces, ideal for exhibiting the frequently monumental and often minimalist (see minimalism) art and large-scale installations Dia favors. ''Ted really started it - he saved an old house that was going to be demolished, and so we bought the land,'' she says. ''It was the most extraordinary thing that ever happened in Houston.''. Woe Follows the Obelisk., Hobdy, D. J. Their actions in Houston focused upon the Civil Rights Movement in particular. Indeed, Adelaide has recently given the museum an important piece from her collection. Expanding. In fact, she is referred to by her oldest son, Georges, as ''the Reverend Mother Superior.'' While the two had mutual feelings for art and social problems, Dominique was reticent and understated, John was ebullient, opinionated, action-oriented. Designed by Renzo Piano, the permanent gallery echoes some of the architectural features of the Menil Collection, such as the use of diffused natural light, while retaining its own, separate identity. ''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. But Heiner lives in a dream. ''Wasn't I there?'' The Menil Foundation is contributing not only the art but about $8 million. THE DE MENILS' civil-rights activities earned them epithets ranging from '''radical chic'' to ''Communist.'' The foundation's extravagant expenditures have necessitated a family rescue effort. Millionaires are different from us, as everyone knows, but as a clan the de Menils are different even from their fellow millionaires, most noticeably in the unconventional ways in which they spend their money. ''It's Dominique's museum and it's important to her,'' Francois says. '', See the article in its original context from. which cannot be easily produced, fi-nanced or owned by individual collectors because of their cost and magnitude". They found it after the war, when their view of Ernst had improved, and they later became one of the artist's most diligent patrons, winding up with more than 100 of his works. Meanwhile, grandiosity and the Schlumberger stock slide have caused the serious foundering of the Dia Foundation, established by Philippa and Heiner Friedrich, to support the ambitious projects of several hand-picked artists. I try to stay close to them, and as time goes on, we are more and more in touch.'' Beyond the family, their influence has been substantial, too. At that point, the de Menils began to drift away from the museum. For years, she has quietly but wholeheartedly backed the work of such performance artists, dancers and musicians as Robert Whitman, La Monte Young, Robert Wilson, Twyla Tharp, Philip Glass, Trisha Brown and Terry Riley. The theoretical thrust of ''The Image of the Black'' reflects Dominique more than John, whose interests were apt to find more direct expression. 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. 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. Though the collection has strengths in Mediterranean antiquities, Eurasian and European artifacts, African art, Cubism, Surrealism and contemporary American and European works, it lacks a museum ''profile.'' Christophe, who at 53 is the oldest (and a grandmother of three, by her daughter Taya) has always been attuned to the avant-garde. 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. Though John was born to a titled military family, he grew up poor, thanks to the efforts of his father to pay off a relative's debt. Inheritance (oil) 20th-century art Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Overview Newswire RobbReport One of the world's largest corporations - its stock was worth nearly $10 billion at the end of 1985 - it employs some 73,000 people in more than 100 countries. Dominique gracefully dismisses the criticisms of the building - planned by her and John since the early 1970's - primarily voiced by Christophe and Adelaide, who wanted a designer of more weight than Renzo Piano. It has, among other gifts, attracted two $5 million contributions: one from the Cullen Foundation, set up by the late conservative oilman Hugh Roy Cullen, another from the Brown Foundation, established by the late Brown brothers, Herman and George R., who were partners in the giant engineering-construction firm of Brown & Root. De Maria has a long history with Dia, having been one of the first artists in its collectionwhich was begun by Philippa de Menil, Heiner Friedrich, and Helen Winkler in 1974and a pivotal player in the institution's history. 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. Sheikh Muzaffer Ozak's most prominent disciples and successors in North America were Tosun Bayrak, Lex Hixon, and Philippa de Menil. She also established the scar Romero Award, named after the slain El Salvadoran bishop. The big, Orientally carpeted chambers, including a prayer room, are accented by Dan Flavin's sculptures of fluorescent light, among other works, and on one wall hangs a portrait of the Friedrichs' late Sufi guru, Sheik Muzaffer Ozak. 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. The de Menil museum in Houston, with its big main-floor display space and a second floor for open storage of art objects, embodies her vision of a museum as a place of ''beauty and enchantment, even before it's a teaching institution, a place where things can be seen on multiple levels, with a relationship made between the objects and the way they are presented.'' The work these artists made changed, or at least questioned, the nature of art: what it. 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. [1], In addition to becoming known as collectors and patrons of art, John and Dominique de Menil were vocal champions of human rights worldwide. A new board was appointed. In 1974, Fr Plans to create a museum to house and exhibit John and Dominique de Menil's collection began as early as 1972 when they asked the architect Louis I. Kahn to design a museum campus on Menil Foundation property in the Montrose neighborhood of Houston near the Rothko Chapel. by Paula Newton November 11, 2013. by Paula Newton November 11, 2013. An informal art historian and teacher, Dominique has also organized some remarkable exhibitions, innovatively installed. . ''Life had been tough for him, and he saw how hard it was for some others.''. I wanted a wooden one.''. "Defying prejudice, Islam's mystical, musical strain appeals to New Yorkers", Menil Foundation - Handbook of Texas Online, "A Special Prize of the Carter-Menil Human Rights Foundation", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dominique_de_Menil&oldid=1127825718, This page was last edited on 16 December 2022, at 21:42. Plans called for Bob Dylan to sing at the service, but he was unavailable, and a tape was played of John's Dylan favorites. They are men mostly, with big egos and big ideas. 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. 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 . (A question mark next to a word above means that we couldn't find it, but clicking the word might provide spelling suggestions.) . ''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. After undergoing revisions by several architects, including Philip Johnson, Howard Barnstone, and Eugene Aubry, the non-denominational Rothko Chapel was dedicated on Menil Foundation property in 1971 in a ceremony that included members of various religions. '', Because Dominique saw ''collecting'' as pretentious, she was reluctant until recently to use the term. German gallery owner Heiner Friedrich, Fariha Friedrich (ne de Menil) and Helen Winkler Fosdick founded Dia. After moving to Houston, the de Menils quickly became key figures in the city's developing cultural life as advocates of modern art and architecture. And I loathed the black-tiled floor. Behind that fragile, otherworldly facade is a complex person of very ambitious reach.''. This in turn enabled the inventors to determine the location of an oil deposit. Philippa and her husband Heiner have made over a former apartment building into a townhouse. Collector-watchers point out, however, that - starting later and with less money - the de Menils have not yet managed to give us the equivalent of the Cloisters, the Museum of Modern art and Colonial Williamsburg. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. Why Not Dedicate Art to King, De Menil Asks City Council., Richard, Paul. ''If only my father could see him now,'' his sister Adelaide has remarked proudly. ''Once the children had the disposal of their own fortunes,'' Dominique says, ''John and I never wanted to interfere.'' Since its inception, the chapel has witnessed all manner of events, from high-minded colloquia to weddings, bar mitzvahs, a Sufi ceremony by whirling dervishes from Turkey, a reception for the Dalai Lama and avant-garde concerts. Fariha Friedrichwhich is the name Philippa de Menil assumed after she and Heiner Friedrich embraced Sufi Islam and married in 1979was talking about the beginning of their foundation. What they do should be balanced against what's possible.''. [31] The result was a museum that appeared "small on the outside, butas big as possible inside". 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. 1529-1538 - Philippa de Ligniville, fille de Jean de Ligniville et de Jeanne d'Oiselet. 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. It is named for the late Abstract Expressionist painter Mark Rothko, whom the de Menils commissioned to do 14 dark, meditative paintings that are the only adornment of the octagonal building. While fostering bonds with the greater Sufi & Muslim American communities, the role of women in Islam and spiritual ecology have been of special importance to her message. I'M VERY PROUD OF them,'' Dominique says of the children, ''and gratified that they have John's and my interests. 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. She spoke at the Byzantine Fresco Chapel, inaugurating the Passionate Voices series, celebrating the 10th anniversary. 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. While the de Menils' collecting and museum-building activities have been enthusiastically compared to those of the great Medici patrons, perhaps a more apt contemporary analogy is with the Rockefeller clan, which entered the art field in the early part of this century. 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. (Such involvements were not confined to Houston, however; among other affiliations, John was a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Primitive Art in New York.) Her second husband is is a German-born former art dealer, Heiner Friedrich, with whom she is deeply engaged in Sufism. ''For instance, there was a big purple and yellow canvas by Leger, and I hated to take my friends through the hall where they could see it. Menil Archives, The Menil Collection, Houston. Naturally, the artists involved - two of whom, Robert Whitman and La Monte Young, lost elaborate performance and living quarters - were hugely disappointed. ''Things just happen to me.'' Called ''well logging,'' the process became the basic asset of the company, eventually proving indispensable to oil companies around the world. 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. "I dreamed of preserving some of the intimacy I had enjoyed with works of art," she wrote. Since its 1980 high of 87 1/8 a share, the Schlumberger stock has slipped to its present $30 or so, due in part to the sluggish oil market. Now I have a vocation and much better bearings.''. John liked to gather the interesting, the creative and -by Houston's standards - the outrageous around him: black activists, artists, poets, renegades of every sort. 1584-1586 - Franoise du Chtelet. Dominique de Menil appears regularly in Forbes magazine's annual listing of the 400 richest people in America, with an estimated worth of ''at least'' $200 million in Schlumberger stock and art alone. [1], The de Menils, however, did not limit their acquisitions to modern art, and their eclectic tastes became a hallmark of their collecting practices. 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. She spoke at the Byzantine Fresco Chapel, inaugurating the Passionate Voices series, celebrating the anniversary! Changed, or at least questioned, the nature of art: what it, her relationship with still-small. 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