Dominique, who from childhood had an impulse toward collecting, acquiring such objects as ''shells, cut-out images, exotic seeds,'' attributes her interest in art -late-blooming as it was - to her mother, who would have collected, save for her husband's disapproval. 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. 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. They ultimately amassed more than 17,000 paintings, sculptures, decorative objects, prints, drawings, photographs, and rare books. [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. Fariha de Menil Friedrich discussed the main principles of Sufism, how it can be a friend and a helper in the contemporary puzzle of conflicting visions and religious doctrines and reflected on how her early life in Houston influenced her spiritual search. 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. 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. 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. As a result, Georges's wife Lois has been appointed to Dia's reconstituted board, and Heiner has resigned. 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. They have been adventurous patrons, perhaps less concerned than many with the kudos and the cash that go with art patronage in American society. Today, Dominique says, her relationship with the still-small institution is ''very friendly. 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. 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. ''Life had been tough for him, and he saw how hard it was for some others.''. 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. (Spookily enough, another dwelling she had built on the same site about 20 years ago met the same end.) [10] They bought more than two hundred pieces from Klejman's New York Gallery. Under a five-year plan negotiated with Rice, the de Menils took with them the art library and many of the staff members they had recruited for St. Thomas. 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 . 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. Christophe, who at 53 is the oldest (and a grandmother of three, by her daughter Taya) has always been attuned to the avant-garde. And the approaching actuality still surprises her: ''It's a long way from my early days as a young wife and mother. The rest of John's and Dominique's estates would go to their own causes. Now it's a coalition of businessmen and minorities who run the city.''. 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. 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. With the guidance of the Dominican priest Marie-Alain Couturier, who introduced the de Menils to the work of artists in galleries and museums in New York, they became interested in the intersection of modern art and spirituality. Giovannini, Joseph. Indeed, Adelaide has recently given the museum an important piece from her collection. I spent hours talking with John about world politics and philosophy. 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. Inheritance (oil) 20th-century art Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Overview Newswire RobbReport ''We changed the basic political structure of Houston,'' says Hofheinz -now chairman of Tangent Oil and Gas - whose four-year mayoral stint corresponded with Houston's ''go-go'' period of growth. Notes Dominique's younger sister, Sylvie Boissonnas -also an art collector and patron, who lives in Paris, ''My father was of Gide's atheist generation, and Dominique was very spiritual. After his death, he lay in state, wrapped in a sheet in his own bed. ''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.'' They have also come to the aid of liberal-left politicians and Islamic religious groups, avant-garde music and counterculture films, archeological digs and art education, Long Island fishermen and anti-Vietnam activists. [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. ''At Marseilles, Mother wrapped us in our loden coats to conceal our spots, so the authorities wouldn't detain us.'' '', ''I wanted a functional museum and they wanted great architecture,'' comments Dominique. ''Ted really started it - he saved an old house that was going to be demolished, and so we bought the land,'' she says. To suggest the institution's role in enabling such ambitions, they selected the name "Dia," taken from the Greek word meaning "through." 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. (To help finance this expensive venture, she sold a number of important paintings last year at Sotheby-Parke Bernet, realizing more than $2 million. [1], She was born in 1947 into a socially committed, eclectic French Catholic family in Houston, Texas. 1529-1538 - Philippa de Ligniville, fille de Jean de Ligniville et de Jeanne d'Oiselet. In 1974, the two formed the Dia Foundation - the name is Greek for catalyst - subsidized solely by Philippa's shares in Schlumberger Ltd. Dia soon became one of the largest and most venturesome nonprofit funding sources in the field of contemporary art, buying up the works of certain artists -more than 125 of John Chamberlain's sculptures of crushed auto parts, for example - and sponsoring projects that range from Walter de Maria's permanent ''earth sculpture,'' comprising 280,000 pounds of dirt that fill a gallery in a SoHo building, to the vast ''Art Museum of the Pecos,'' in Marfa, Tex., a compound of more than 340 acres which has deployed an array of indoor and outdoor works by Donald Judd and other artists. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. 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. 1538-1576 - Anne de Barbay, fille de Guyot de Barbay et d'Anne de Frenelle. De Menil died in Houston on December 31, 1997. I never really wanted to collect, but the idea of a foundation that would help artists build excited me. 1974 by art dealer Heiner Friedrich and his wife, art patron Philippa de Menil. 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. (Box, page 38.) The Barnett Newman ''Broken Obelisk,'' made of Cor-Ten steel, stands 26 feet high in a reflecting pool that faces the chapel's entrance. 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.'' (Once, for instance, he surprised the dance critic Jill Johnston with a round-trip ticket to England, so she could visit her birthplace.) The children and their mother also occasionally drop in on Val-Richer, the vast estate in Normandy passed down by Schlumberger ancestors. ''It's Dominique's museum and it's important to her,'' Francois says. ''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. Additionally, they have a manicured beachfront estate on Fishers Island, off Connecticut, and a house in Paris. 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. Hugetz, Edward, and Brian Huberman. [11] Influenced by the teachings of Father Couturier and Father Congar, the de Menils developed a particular humanist ethos in which they understood art as a central part of the human experience. Dominique and John de Menil, circa 1967. (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.'') But Heiner lives in a dream. Why Not Dedicate Art to King, De Menil Asks City Council., Richard, Paul. When their children were still young, and Schlumberger shares were worth comparatively little, John and Dominique de Menil decided they would put half of their holdings in trust funds for each of their five children. Philippa de Menil. THE NEW BUILDING will be close to another, even more un-Houstonian de Menil monument. In a stronghold of segregation, they not only backed civil rights and Martin Luther King, but entertained blacks at dinner. ''I'm really too busy to see you today,'' she announced, and vanished. "[15] In 1954 they founded the Menil Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the "support and advancement of religious, charitable, literary, scientific and educational purposes".[16]. John was more interested in architecture as architecture, and in a sense maybe Christophe and Adelaide are taking his role. She says now that she never imagined their acquisitions would someday fill a museum. They have sold off a good deal of it over the years, and diversified their holdings. 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. Carr, Annemarie Weyl, and Laurence J. Morrocco. ''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. 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. Naturally, the artists involved - two of whom, Robert Whitman and La Monte Young, lost elaborate performance and living quarters - were hugely disappointed. The public would never know museum fatigue and would have the rare joy of sitting in front of a painting and contemplating it Works would appear, disappear, and reappear like actors on a stage. to find the word you're looking for. 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. BUT, AS DOMINIQUE likes to point out, she and John didn't start out rich. Says Philip Johnson, who met Dominique and John when they were ''still living in a tract house'' in Houston, ''They were unpretentious, yet arrogant enough. THE DE MENILS' civil-rights activities earned them epithets ranging from '''radical chic'' to ''Communist.'' WHERE THE DE MENIL MONEY COMES FROM. And several years ago, when they were agitating in Albany for legislation on fishing rights. The chapel, opened in 1971, is an all-faith center, a ''no man's land of God,'' Dominique says. Anyone can read what you share. ''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. Fariha de Menil Friedrich discussed the main principles of Sufism, how it can be a friend and a helper in the contemporary puzzle of conflicting visions and religious doctrines and reflected on how her early life in Houston influenced her spiritual search. John listened patiently to the telephone tirade and then said, ''Listen, my friend, why don't you come to my house for a drink? 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 The Fathers, too, can now see both sides. In fact, its long, low bulk looks more like, say, the suburban branch of an elegant department store. 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. I'M VERY PROUD OF them,'' Dominique says of the children, ''and gratified that they have John's and my interests. But, he says, ''I was fortunate to be exposed to their interest in art as part of the natural fabric of life. In fact, she is referred to by her oldest son, Georges, as ''the Reverend Mother Superior.'' 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. Her ideas are defended by her son-the-architectural-student. Inheritance (oil) 20th-century art Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Overview Newswire RobbReport When John de Menil walked into Alexander Iolas Gallery in Paris one day in 1964, Jean Tinguely's moving, noisy sculptures stole part of . (A question mark next to a word above means that we couldn't find it, but clicking the word might provide spelling suggestions.) Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. 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. 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.'' 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. The theoretical thrust of ''The Image of the Black'' reflects Dominique more than John, whose interests were apt to find more direct expression. 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. John shot from the hip. Says Dominique, ''The idea of the foundation was marvelous, and they've done great things. They were compelling.'' Staff Interface | ArchivesSpace.org | Hosted by LYRASIS, Art and soul of GZ [ground zero] imams holy-pal heiress, 2010-09-27. ''She had a passion for art, and in later years she did buy it, but she gave it to her grandchildren - small things, a little Klee, a little Picasso, a little Rouault,'' says Dominique. 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. 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. '', See the article in its original context from. 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. Schlumberger, Dominique. . 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. * In the early 1990s Dia became a So serious, in fact, was the recent plight of Dia that Dominique asked her son Georges, a trustee of Philippa's inheritance, to help. . (For their honeymoon, he took Dominique on a bus trip through Morocco.) She said. They had a foreign accent, and political views that for Texas were extremely liberal. Photo by Michael Schmelling The platform roof comprises precision-made structural elements of ferrocement and steel, engineered so as to reflect changing light conditions with great sensitivity. But when the artist arrived, she appeared for a moment only. "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. For example, use 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 Isaline Zelia Henriette Clarisse Schlumberger. 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. battle of omdurman order of battle. She has now turned her East Side carriage house into a fashion atelier. Notable exhibitions at Rice Museum organized with the help of the de Menils were "The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age", curated by Pontus Hulten for the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and "Raid the Icebox 1 with Andy Warhol",[17] an exhibition of objects selected by Warhol from the storage vaults of the Museum of Art at Rhode Island School of Design. [1], The Menil campus also includes the Byzantine Fresco Chapel. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Ironically, planned in a time of boom for Houston, the museum will be finished in a time of bust, due to falling oil prices. 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. Casey Lesser. ''Each branch of the Schlumberger clan has a wing,'' Christophe explains. A big show of the family's art collections was held at the Grand Palais in Paris two years ago. It will house the more than 10,000 objects acquired by the couple. At the sale, Dominique bought a Barnett Newman and Adelaide picked up her first de Kooning.) Website http://www.diaart.org Industries. 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. She has organized a forthcoming book ''Men's Lives'' - with specially commissioned photographs, and a text by Peter Matthiessen -about them. In the dining room, 18 rare chairs by the Viennese architect Josef Hoffman surround a pair of tables designed by Gwathmey. Eventually - despite their contributions of time and art - their ambitious projects brought them into conflict with budget-minded trustees. Someone recommended a Surrealist painter named Max Ernst to decorate a wall of their apartment; disliking his proposal, the newlyweds commissioned from him instead a portrait of Dominique. [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. 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.
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