Rites were performed not only by a Catholic prelate, but a black Baptist minister, a rabbi, and a Buddhist priest. [5] They actually maintained their support here for six or seven years before it began to happen.'' After Sheikh Nur's passing, she would take on the guidance of the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Order and it's circles of dervishes around the world. They had a foreign accent, and political views that for Texas were extremely liberal. She says now that she never imagined their acquisitions would someday fill a museum. 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. BUT, AS DOMINIQUE likes to point out, she and John didn't start out rich. Actually, her children venerate Dominique almost to the point of copying her.'' 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. She spoke at the Byzantine Fresco Chapel, inaugurating the Passionate Voices series, celebrating the 10th anniversary. In 1974, Friedrich and his future wife, Philippa de Menil, the youngest child of Dominique and John de Menil of the Schlumberger oil fortune, created the Dia Art Foundation. 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. 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. Yet for all her protests, her modest, low-key bearing conceals the drive of a captain of industry, and one of her associates says, ''The phrase 'steel butterfly' was coined for her. The de Menils' involvement with blacks has not only been on the political level. As a result, Georges's wife Lois has been appointed to Dia's reconstituted board, and Heiner has resigned. Looking back, I suppose we were too ambitious, and they felt overwhelmed.'' [1] American Sufi leader While the two had mutual feelings for art and social problems, Dominique was reticent and understated, John was ebullient, opinionated, action-oriented. They were compelling.'' 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 chapel, opened in 1971, is an all-faith center, a ''no man's land of God,'' Dominique says. Heiner has helped me step out into life.''. Dia Art Foundation, American foundation that supports contemporary art and artists, est. ''Things just happen to me.'' 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]. [2], Sheikha Fariha al-Jerrahi leads devotional prayers, ceremonies of divine remembrance, and provides spiritual guidance to initiates from her seat at the Dergah al-Farah in downtown Manhattan. 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. .''. They have been adventurous patrons, perhaps less concerned than many with the kudos and the cash that go with art patronage in American society. 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. 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. They were an extraordinary couple. She has organized a forthcoming book ''Men's Lives'' - with specially commissioned photographs, and a text by Peter Matthiessen -about them. Most of the land and houses within a six-block radius, quietly assembled by John, are under de Menil ownership. 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. (Philippa's first name was changed to Fariha when she converted to Islam during the wedding ceremony to Heiner) and co-founded Dia with Helen Winkler in the mid to late 1970s. Christophe, who at 53 is the oldest (and a grandmother of three, by her daughter Taya) has always been attuned to the avant-garde. 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. 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. He wanted me to be exposed to every aspect of their life that would give me a chance to do things for my community. ''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.'' (An uncle, Jean Schlumberger, helped found the celebrated literary magazine Nouvelle Revue Francaise). Georges and Lois de Menil have not lagged behind. Her second husband is. 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 foundation operates Dia:Beacon (est. 1584-1586 - Franoise du Chtelet. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. 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. Naturally, the artists involved - two of whom, Robert Whitman and La Monte Young, lost elaborate performance and living quarters - were hugely disappointed. 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. THE NEW BUILDING will be close to another, even more un-Houstonian de Menil monument. He took the the couple around to galleries, singing the praises of the modernists. Essays and short texts describe the de Menils' collecting; their patronage of modern architecture; their promotion of film as an art form; their struggles . 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. Modern Reliquary: In a New Houston Museum, Francois de Menil Crafts an Authentic Setting for Two Byzantine Frescoes., Last edited on 16 December 2022, at 21:42, Houston-based oilfield services corporation. "[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]. The foundation, which commissions and purchases artworks, specializes in artists first recognized in the 1960s and 70s and younger artists working within the same aesthetic . 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. [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. De Menil died in Houston on December 31, 1997. Dominique de Menil, Quoted in Browning 1983, 37. Says Dominique, ''The idea of the foundation was marvelous, and they've done great things. 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. Ever since, Dia's mission has been to commission, support, and present site-specific long-term installations and single-artists exhibitions to the public. 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. ''But there were all these weird paintings hanging on the walls,'' she says. Now it's a coalition of businessmen and minorities who run the city.''. (Brought up a Protestant, she converted to Catholicism to marry John.) 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.'' At the sale, Dominique bought a Barnett Newman and Adelaide picked up her first de Kooning.) In, Donald D. Clayton, "The Dark Night Sky: a personal adventure in cosmology" Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co. (New York 1975), Richard, Paul. In 1981, on the chapel's 10th birthday, awards of $10,000 each were given to a dozen exemplary figures working in the cause of human rights -ranging from Tatiana Velikanova, a Russian mathematician, to Ned O'Gorman, a poet who founded the Children's Storefront in Harlem. 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. ''Not only were they considered radical, but really different. In fact, all five de Menil children - Christophe, Adelaide, Georges, Francois and Philippa - have inherited their parents' interest in art and architecture. She studied mathematics and physics at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1927-28 . [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. '', AT 78, DOMINIQUE IS A HANDSOME WOMAN OF frail, unassuming presence, whose ''spiritual'' mien and austere garb evoke the image of a medieval saint. 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 idea was born, Dominique says, out of her ''shock'' at discovering segregation ''when I arrived in the United States, and wondering why, when great artists have seen blacks as beautiful, dignified, noble, they were not considered so here.''. Beyond the family, their influence has been substantial, too. Brennan, Marcia, Alfred Pacquement, and Ann Temkin. 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. It was inescapable. Giovannini, Joseph. 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. ''Each of the children,'' says Adelaide now, ''would have preferred his or her own choice of architects, but after all, it is my mother's museum. 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. The stock decline was an element in the recent heavy retrenchment of the Dia Foundation, entirely supported by Philippa de Menil, to the tune of several million dollars a year. In 1983, the foundation listed assets of approximately $30 million in art and real estate. ''', 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. 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. When John de Menil walked into Alexander Iolas Gallery in Paris one day in 1964, Jean Tinguely's moving, noisy sculptures stole part of . Eventually - despite their contributions of time and art - their ambitious projects brought them into conflict with budget-minded trustees. 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. [1] They commissioned Henri Cartier-Bresson to photograph the 1957 American Federation of Arts convention, held in Houston that year, and worked with photographers such as Frederick Baldwin and Wendy Watriss, who went on to establish FotoFest, and Geoff Winningham, who served as head of the photography department at Rice Media Center. (A question mark next to a word above means that we couldn't find it, but clicking the word might provide spelling suggestions.) 1538-1576 - Anne de Barbay, fille de Guyot de Barbay et d'Anne de Frenelle. A big show of the family's art collections was held at the Grand Palais in Paris two years ago. 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. 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. De Maria had traveled to Santa Barbara for his mother's 100th birthday in early June; however, he went on to . 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. philippa de menilare there really purple owls. Soon, Rice was a beehive of arts activities. 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. [1], The de Menils, however, did not limit their acquisitions to modern art, and their eclectic tastes became a hallmark of their collecting practices. '', See the article in its original context from. 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