philippa de menil

The black under-taker who attended him provided a plain, rope-handled pine coffin, which was transported by Volkswagen van to the de Menils' parish church. I wanted a wooden one.''. 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. Schlumberger Ltd. - tHE Source of the de Menil family's fortune - was established in 1934 by Conrad Schlumberger, Dominique de Menil's father, and Marcel Schlumberger, her uncle. 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. In return for her efforts, the Holy Bishopric of Cyprus allowed the works to remain in Houston on a 20-year loan. The day and hour were set, with Dominique's agreement. Christophe, for example, was once chided by an East Hampton hostess for not showing up at a party. Philippa and her husband Heiner have made over a former apartment building into a townhouse. They have been adventurous patrons, perhaps less concerned than many with the kudos and the cash that go with art patronage in American society. Dia Art Foundation, American foundation that supports contemporary art and artists, est. So serious, in fact, was the recent plight of Dia that Dominique asked her son Georges, a trustee of Philippa's inheritance, to help. Eventually - despite their contributions of time and art - their ambitious projects brought them into conflict with budget-minded trustees. Initially the stated aim as written in its first report was to "plan, realise and maintain public projects of artists. 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. ''It gives us a strong family feeling.''. For example, use 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. Also on display in Richmond Hall are four examples of Flavin's "monuments" to V. Tatlin, created between 1964 and 1969.[1][36]. ''Christophe and I had chicken pox,'' remembers Adelaide. 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. 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.'' Today, Dominique says, her relationship with the still-small institution is ''very friendly. 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. .''. The rest of John's and Dominique's estates would go to their own causes. Menil Archives, The Menil Collection, 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. I spent hours talking with John about world politics and philosophy. [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. Not helpful? 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. She says now that she never imagined their acquisitions would someday fill a museum. THE DE MENILS' civil-rights activities earned them epithets ranging from '''radical chic'' to ''Communist.'' 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. [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". Beyond the family, their influence has been substantial, too. Heiner Friedrich and Fariha Friedrich (formerly Philippa de Menil), who Photography became an important component of the collection, which includes works by Eve Arnold, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Danny Lyon, Hans Namuth, and Eve Sonneman. [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. Philippa de Menil. [1], The de Menils, however, did not limit their acquisitions to modern art, and their eclectic tastes became a hallmark of their collecting practices. Coordinated by civil rights activist and later U.S. 1974 by art dealer Heiner Friedrich and his wife, art patron Philippa de Menil. [10] They bought more than two hundred pieces from Klejman's New York Gallery. [1] Contents 1 Biography 2 See also 3 References 4 External links Biography [ edit] She was born in 1947 into a socially committed, eclectic French Catholic family in Houston, Texas. Playing savior to old buildings in the area, she and Ted Carpenter have rescued 15 of them and restored most, with the aid of the Houston architect, Howard Barnstone, a longtime family friend. 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. stephen scherr family; nigel jones philadelphia. 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. And Donald Judd has gone public with vociferous denunciations of the foundation, which is now but a shadow of itself. menil? In a stronghold of segregation, they not only backed civil rights and Martin Luther King, but entertained blacks at dinner. Plans called for Bob Dylan to sing at the service, but he was unavailable, and a tape was played of John's Dylan favorites. His interest in architecture, he says, comes from his father and from working with Charles Gwathmey, who designed his East Hampton house. Inevitably, John's impulse to control brought him into conflict with other trustees, notably John Blaffer, son of a powerful Houston family. 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. [1], The Menil campus also includes the Byzantine Fresco Chapel. (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.'') It is often cited as one of the most significant privately assembled art collections, alongside the Barnes Foundation and the J. Paul Getty Museum. In 1974, Fr After a substantial inheritance from their Schlumberger grandmother, nothing more would be forthcoming, the children were given to understand. ''It began to look more like de Menil University than St. Thomas. It was inescapable. It also features temporary exhibitions. ''We even borrowed money to buy art. 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. THE COUPLE'S MOST INTENSE Houston involvement was with St. Thomas University, a small Catholic college. 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. De Menil died in Houston on December 31, 1997. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. As a result, Georges's wife Lois has been appointed to Dia's reconstituted board, and Heiner has resigned. At that point, the de Menils began to drift away from the museum. 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. 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. '', See the article in its original context from. And then, you can move in and we can move out.' 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 listened patiently to the telephone tirade and then said, ''Listen, my friend, why don't you come to my house for a drink? (To help finance this expensive venture, she sold a number of important paintings last year at Sotheby-Parke Bernet, realizing more than $2 million. Called ''well logging,'' the process became the basic asset of the company, eventually proving indispensable to oil companies around the world. They gave major gifts of art to the school, bought land to expand the campus and hired Philip Johnson to design new buildings. 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. One of the first International Style residences in Texas, it generated controversy not only by standing out amongst the mansions of River Oaks but also by pairing Johnson's clean, modernist lines with a bold color palette and eclectic interior design by Charles James. . His accomplished wife, Lois, a political historian with a Ph.D. from Harvard, is writing a book on a prominent 19th-century Schlumberger ancestor, Francois Guizot, Premier of France under Louis Philippe. [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. 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. 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. The theoretical thrust of ''The Image of the Black'' reflects Dominique more than John, whose interests were apt to find more direct expression. The foundation cut back drastically on its support of artists, began to sell some of its extensive real estate holdings and, at auction, some of its choice art works. Pianissimo: The Very Quiet Menil Collection., Holmes, Ann, and Patricia C. Johnson. (5) Philippa (Anne Caroline Philippa de Mnil) (born June 13, 1947) - A co-founder of the Dia Art Foundation. She has now turned her East Side carriage house into a fashion atelier. Heiner has helped me step out into life.''. She said. 1538-1576 - Anne de Barbay, fille de Guyot de Barbay et d'Anne de Frenelle. The project, not universally appreciated by black scholars who tend to feel the emphasis should be placed on what blacks themselves have created, has so far published two books on the subject. [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. 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. This in turn enabled the inventors to determine the location of an oil deposit. She began to collect work by contemporary Americans even before her parents did, and exerted considerable influence on their acquisitions in the field. They had a foreign accent, and political views that for Texas were extremely liberal. 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 . 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. They are men mostly, with big egos and big ideas. At the sale, Dominique bought a Barnett Newman and Adelaide picked up her first de Kooning.) 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. 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. Brennan, Marcia, Alfred Pacquement, and Ann Temkin. "[8] Piano's understated design for the Menil Collection echoed the architecture of the surrounding bungalows, which had been painted gray by the Menil Foundation, and featured a roof of canopy leaves that allowed filtered natural light to fill the galleries. John shot from the hip. [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. [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. ''It's Dominique's museum and it's important to her,'' Francois says. While the two had mutual feelings for art and social problems, Dominique was reticent and understated, John was ebullient, opinionated, action-oriented. They established the university's Media Center in 1967. ''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. Like the other children, he realizes fully that his parents are a difficult act to follow. The enigmatic Friedrich quit New York, disappeared into a wandering, art-mad exile; Philippa de Menil, the embattled heiress, had long since ceased to exist. I never really wanted to collect, but the idea of a foundation that would help artists build excited me. tion in 1974, run by Philippa de Menil, Heiner Friedrich and Helen Winkler. When de Menil learned that a group of 13th-century Byzantine frescoes had been stolen from a chapel in Lysi, Cyprus, and cut up by smugglers, she paid the ransom and funded their restoration. Hugetz, Edward, and Brian Huberman. (Spookily enough, another dwelling she had built on the same site about 20 years ago met the same end.) Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. 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. 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. 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. Website http://www.diaart.org Industries. 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.'' Philippa was then married to Francesco Pellizzi, an Italian anthropology student, and already exploring with him the concept of helping artists realize large-scale environmental works. He did. The Menil Foundation is contributing not only the art but about $8 million. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. 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. When the de Menils acquired the sculpture in 1968, the year the Rev. But the falling price of Schlumberger stock and serious administrative problems brought big financial troubles. There was a moral obligation to get involved with their involvements. 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. You can look up the words in the phrase individually using these links: philippa? Dominique de Menil, Quoted in Browning 1983, 37. ''I'm extreme and I have strong tastes,'' says Christophe, who is also an excellent though unexhibited photographer. 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. '', ''I wanted a functional museum and they wanted great architecture,'' comments Dominique. [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. Dominique and John de Menil, circa 1967. 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. [1] American Sufi leader Few philanthropists of the 20th century contributed more to the American art world than Dominique and John de Menil. Soon, Rice was a beehive of arts activities. Indeed, shuttling among residences in Houston, New York and Paris, Dominique has a heavy agenda. To suggest the institution's role in enabling such ambitions, they selected the name "Dia," taken from the Greek word meaning "through." 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. 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. "Les divers procds du film parlant". Back came a cable: ''BUY WHOLE SHOW.'' 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. 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. (Box, page 38.) Her second husband is is a German-born former art dealer, Heiner Friedrich, with whom she is deeply engaged in Sufism. [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. Christophe, who at 53 is the oldest (and a grandmother of three, by her daughter Taya) has always been attuned to the avant-garde. [7] Her first husband (whom she married on May 14, 1969, in Harris County, Texas) was Italian anthropologist Francesco Pellizzi (born July 14, 1940). Whitman brought a suit against Dia, which is pending. Philippa de Menil (now Fariha Fatima al-Jerrahi) ominously reflected on the passing of her spiritual guide saying, "His death seemed to herald many new changes." [5] The new board began slashing at Dia contracts and real estate to get the budget under control with projects being dropped and dismantled at a fast rate. Dominique's way of not always paying full attention to this world has been transmitted to some of her offspring. That same year they provided the University of St. Thomas, a small Catholic institution in Houston, with funding to build Strake Hall and Jones Hall, designed by Philip Johnson per their recommendation. Collectively, they have disbursed tens of millions of dollars for purchases, commissions and general support of art - contributions, to be sure, that more than occasionally have been attended by an impulse to control. . [32], Dedicated on June 7, 1987, the Menil Collection exhibits objects from John and Dominique de Menil's collection, including selections of African Art, a vast collection of Surrealist pieces, and the work of a number of contemporary American artists such as Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still, Robert Motherwell, Cy Twombly, and Mark Rothko. The work these artists made changed, or at least questioned, the nature of art: what it. 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. which cannot be easily produced, fi-nanced or owned by individual collectors because of their cost and magnitude". 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. [31] The result was a museum that appeared "small on the outside, butas big as possible inside". The chapel, opened in 1971, is an all-faith center, a ''no man's land of God,'' Dominique says. Inheritance (oil) 20th-century art Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Overview Newswire RobbReport She received direct transmission from him in 1980. Helped by Citizens for Good Schools, a progressive organization supported by de Menil money, Everett won his seat, along with the other three candidates supported by the citizens group. She also established the scar Romero Award, named after the slain El Salvadoran bishop. 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. In fact, its long, low bulk looks more like, say, the suburban branch of an elegant department store. And in a place where modern art was still regarded with suspicion, these ''pioneer cultural wildcatters,'' as one Houstonian calls them, established one of the world's outstanding collections, mounted shows and gave works to institutions - adding insult to injury by bringing the artists themselves to town. WHERE THE DE MENIL MONEY COMES FROM. Congressman Mickey Leland, it was one of the first racially integrated art shows in the United States.[28]. And the approaching actuality still surprises her: ''It's a long way from my early days as a young wife and mother. She spoke at the Byzantine Fresco Chapel, inaugurating the Passionate Voices series, celebrating the 10th anniversary. 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. The bulk of the vast collection - reportedly worth between $150 milllion and $175 million - will be kept on the second floor in open storage, visible to anyone who wants to see it. Hewing to the European tradition of millionaire radicals, they came to be Houston's most rewardingly subversive citizens, bringing maverick ideas to the provinces about art, politics and what to do with money. ''But there were all these weird paintings hanging on the walls,'' she says. ''Before that it was the old Bourbon alliance, blue-collar whites and white-collar businessmen. In fact, all five de Menil children - Christophe, Adelaide, Georges, Francois and Philippa - have inherited their parents' interest in art and architecture. Date of birth 1947 Birth place Houston, USA Philippa De Menil Siblings Philippa De Menil Age 71 (approx.) Their associates tend not to be other superrichlings, but artists, film makers, poets, anthropologists, activists, professors, priests and - in the case of Philippa, who is involved with Sufism, an Islamic philosophy - sheiks and whirling dervishes. The founders had . He remembers admiring a photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson at Adelaide's house. They have sold off a good deal of it over the years, and diversified their holdings. 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. ''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. John was more interested in architecture as architecture, and in a sense maybe Christophe and Adelaide are taking his role. Friedrich and his then wife Philippa de Menil, together with Helen Winkler, established the Dia Art Foundation in 1973.

Bedrosians Wood Look Tile,