The theoretical thrust of ''The Image of the Black'' reflects Dominique more than John, whose interests were apt to find more direct expression. Its basis was a device that was lowered by cable into the ground to measure the electrical resistance of formations in the earth. But when the artist arrived, she appeared for a moment only. There are some who think they're crazy. But, he says, ''I was fortunate to be exposed to their interest in art as part of the natural fabric of life. They began to concentrate on the more established Museum of Fine Arts. .''. Also on display in Richmond Hall are four examples of Flavin's "monuments" to V. Tatlin, created between 1964 and 1969.[1][36]. Fariha Fatima al-Jerrahi (born Philippa de Menil; 13 June 1947) is the spiritual guide and current Sheikha of the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Order in New York City. [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 DE MENILS' IN-volvement in the Houston art world began in the 1940's - an inevitable consequence of Father Couturier's evangelism. And she was surrounded by accomplished relatives. The minute the cops arrive, they form ranks. [5] Her ideas are defended by her son-the-architectural-student. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. ''Wasn't I there?'' 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. So serious, in fact, was the recent plight of Dia that Dominique asked her son Georges, a trustee of Philippa's inheritance, to help. 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. 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. Date of birth 1947 Birth place Houston, USA Philippa De Menil Siblings Philippa De Menil Age 71 (approx.) 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. 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. ''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.'' '', AT 78, DOMINIQUE IS A HANDSOME WOMAN OF frail, unassuming presence, whose ''spiritual'' mien and austere garb evoke the image of a medieval saint. [33], The nearby Cy Twombly Gallery, opened in 1995, houses more than thirty of Twombly's paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. She has organized a forthcoming book ''Men's Lives'' - with specially commissioned photographs, and a text by Peter Matthiessen -about them. 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. 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.'' (Dia, the Greek. Raised a Protestant, Dominique converted to Roman Catholicism in 1932. 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. The couple also has a house in Bridgehampton, L.I., and a 60-square-mile holding in Texas, known as Mesquite Ranch, that is being restored, possibly for use as a retreat or conference center. Articles in Zest section The Menil Opens.. But as a friend notes, ''She is maybe not so much a collector as a catalyst who makes things happen.'' Fariha, born Philippa de Menil, . Married to Susan Silver, a Barnard graduate (their son was born in January), he collects contemporary art, furniture, craft objects of the turn-of-the-century Vienna Secessionist school and rare books on art and architecture. But one family member suggests that the figure ''could easily be twice that amount.'' Christophe, a tall, graceful woman, who has a long history of supporting ''difficult'' art projects, began designing costumes for Robert Wilson in 1981. Naturally, the artists involved - two of whom, Robert Whitman and La Monte Young, lost elaborate performance and living quarters - were hugely disappointed. The issue was really the kind of institution St. Thomas was to be - would it maintain its Catholic identity or would it become a secular college? ''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. They have been adventurous patrons, perhaps less concerned than many with the kudos and the cash that go with art patronage in American society. [34] The frescoesa dome with Christ Pantokrator and an apse depicting the Virgin Mary Panayiawere installed in a reliquary-like space interior where they were displayed until March 2012, at which time they were returned to the Church of Cyprus. German gallery owner Heiner Friedrich, Fariha Friedrich (ne de Menil) and Helen Winkler Fosdick founded Dia. She is not a ''go-getter,'' she insists in her French-tinged English. 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. Schlumberger is still the global leader in well logging, and has expanded over the years into the manufacture of electric and gas meters, transformers, microcircuits, instruments and test systems for aerospace and other industries. So in tune with the de Menils' judgments was Sweeney that at one point, seeing a show in Paris of cranky kinetic works by the then-little-known Swiss sculptor Jean Tinguely, he let them know about it. 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. To supple-ment the scanty family income, John dropped out of school to work in a bank. 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. 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. But Heiner lives in a dream. Inheritance (oil) 20th-century art Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Overview Newswire RobbReport ''Ted really started it - he saved an old house that was going to be demolished, and so we bought the land,'' she says. [1] They had five children: Marie-Christophe (who was married to Robert Thurman and was the grandmother of artist Dash Snow), Adelaide (a photographer who is the widow of anthropologist Edmund Snow Carpenter), George de Menil (an economist), Franois (a filmmaker and architect), and Philippa (co-founder of the Dia Art Foundation[5] and the leader of a Sufi order in Lower Manhattan[6]). The Menil Collection's discreet, low-key architecture befits its site in Montrose, a modest, socially mixed residential area of Houston. [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. She studied mathematics and physics at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1927-28 . Heiner's Wagnerian ambitions to serve as impresario for artists with grand-scale visions appealed to her. [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. Dominique de Menil, the daughter of Conrad Schlumberger and his wife, Louise Delpech, was born in Paris on March 23, 1908. THE COUPLE'S MOST INTENSE Houston involvement was with St. Thomas University, a small Catholic college. 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. Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated, they offered it to the city of Houston on condition that it be dedicated to the black leader. "The Memory of Rossellini in Texas." 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. '', ''I wanted a functional museum and they wanted great architecture,'' comments Dominique. ''He made us greedy,'' Dominique says, remembering that the priest once appeared for lunch with a Rouault painting under his arm. Says Dominique, ''The idea of the foundation was marvelous, and they've done great things. Their Georgian town house of brick and marble, while more for-mally ordered than the digs of the others, serves as a setting for high-caliber contemporary art, and is one of the Upper East Side's more elegant private dwellings. The Barnett Newman ''Broken Obelisk,'' made of Cor-Ten steel, stands 26 feet high in a reflecting pool that faces the chapel's entrance. 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. (The two recently returned from a trek to western Tibet to take in the ruins of an 11th-century Buddhist temple.) For example, use (An uncle, Jean Schlumberger, helped found the celebrated literary magazine Nouvelle Revue Francaise). Brennan, Marcia, Alfred Pacquement, and Ann Temkin. After the Nazi invasion of France, Dominique fled Paris with her then-three children (Georges was a babe in arms), made her way to Spain and at Bilbao boarded a small freighter for Havana. And I loathed the black-tiled floor. 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. As with the de Menils' Houston home, by Texas standards the building is more than a little understated. Ever since, Dia's mission has been to commission, support, and present site-specific long-term installations and single-artists exhibitions to the public. I'M VERY PROUD OF them,'' Dominique says of the children, ''and gratified that they have John's and my interests. It serves the vi-sion of a place ''for people in search of peace, meditation and a more intense consciousness of our time.'' [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. ''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. 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. Schlumberger, Dominique. The two youngest children are Francois, 41, and Philippa, 39. ''Christophe and I had chicken pox,'' remembers Adelaide. I try to stay close to them, and as time goes on, we are more and more in touch.'' And early last year, facing an inquiry by the New York State Attorney General into its management practices - with a debt of more than $6 million, a projected budget of $5 million, but no visible source of income - Dia began to pull in its horns. Like the other children, he realizes fully that his parents are a difficult act to follow. ''If only my father could see him now,'' his sister Adelaide has remarked proudly. [6], "Shaykha Fariha al Jerrahi | WISE Muslim Women Shaykha Fariha al Jerrahi", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fariha_al_Jerrahi&oldid=1096401510, This page was last edited on 4 July 2022, at 07:16. 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. "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. 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. ''Dominique and John were entirely separate people who worked not so much together but in parallel ways,'' suggests Fred Hofheinz. After a substantial inheritance from their Schlumberger grandmother, nothing more would be forthcoming, the children were given to understand. ''She feels a museum is all about interior spaces. John shot from the hip. And when John died in 1973, he left his estate in part to Dominique and in part to the Menil Foundation, set up in 1954 to support ecumenism, education, the arts and minority causes. Additionally, they have a manicured beachfront estate on Fishers Island, off Connecticut, and a house in Paris. [1], The Menil campus also includes the Byzantine Fresco Chapel. ''Not only were they considered radical, but really different. "I dreamed of preserving some of the intimacy I had enjoyed with works of art," she wrote. To suggest the institution's role in enabling such ambitions, they selected the name "Dia," taken from the Greek word meaning "through." 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 were compelling.'' An informal art historian and teacher, Dominique has also organized some remarkable exhibitions, innovatively installed. Expanding. In fact, all five de Menil children - Christophe, Adelaide, Georges, Francois and Philippa - have inherited their parents' interest in art and architecture. Ibish, Yusuf, and Peter Lamborn Wilson, eds. The work these artists made changed, or at least questioned, the nature of art: what it. Today, while Dominique still administers the Institute for the Arts, and contributes to such programs as fellowships for graduate students in art history, the de Menil presence there has shrunk considerably. Small wonder that in Houston, a city where, as a local gadfly once observed, ''it's easier to be rich than interesting,'' the de Menils are something of a legend. 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. Description Art and Activism surveys John and Dominique de Menil's projects in art, architecture, and civil and human rights, initiatives that deeply affected the city of Houston and often national and even international communities. 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. (Brought up a Protestant, she converted to Catholicism to marry John.) [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. . The story goes back to the early 70's when Heiner, a European dealer, transferred his activities to New York, while retaining his interest in his Munich gallery. You can't just expand and expand. Coordinated by civil rights activist and later U.S. 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. In 1983, the foundation listed assets of approximately $30 million in art and real estate. Called ''well logging,'' the process became the basic asset of the company, eventually proving indispensable to oil companies around the world. I spent hours talking with John about world politics and philosophy. ''If it hadn't been for them, we wouldn't be here,'' says Father Frank H. Bredeweg, now president of the college. 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. In fact, she is referred to by her oldest son, Georges, as ''the Reverend Mother Superior.'' ''Each branch of the Schlumberger clan has a wing,'' Christophe explains. 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 building was designed by architect Francois de Menil and mimics the original Lysi chapel. Then you can see how a Communist lives.'' 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. They were the first Americans to influence Europeans. ''But there were all these weird paintings hanging on the walls,'' she says. Menil Archives, The Menil Collection, Houston. 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. Both pupils received new Sufi names. 1529-1538 - Philippa de Ligniville, fille de Jean de Ligniville et de Jeanne d'Oiselet. Now it's a coalition of businessmen and minorities who run the city.''. Philippa De Menil Bio Details Full name Philippa De Menil Gender Female Age 71 (approx.) 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. Heiner Friedrich is an art dealer and collector of minimal art and conceptual art. 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. ''Yet I admire them, and I don't want to belittle their achievements.'' 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 . When the de Menils acquired the sculpture in 1968, the year the Rev. Looking back, I suppose we were too ambitious, and they felt overwhelmed.'' Philippa and her husband Heiner have made over a former apartment building into a townhouse. 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. In fact, its long, low bulk looks more like, say, the suburban branch of an elegant department store. 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. 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 . 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. 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. ''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. ''I'm extreme and I have strong tastes,'' says Christophe, who is also an excellent though unexhibited photographer. Born 1947 Start a FameChain Trivia Philippa De Menil Family View Philippa De Menil's Family Tree and History, Ancestry and Genealogy Back came a cable: ''BUY WHOLE SHOW.'' Their actions in Houston focused upon the Civil Rights Movement in particular. John's assertiveness made itself felt even as he lay dying of cancer, when he prepared a scenario for his funeral. Francois's taste in art is more of a mixed bag than Christophe's, ranging from works by Matisse, de Chirico, Picasso and Rothko to a flock of life-size fake sheep by the French artists Francois-Xavier and Claude Lalanne. ''It was the most extraordinary thing that ever happened in Houston.''. 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.'' ''We even borrowed money to buy art. 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. Dominique, who maintains three homes herself, shakes her head indulgently over their ''extravagance.''. John listened patiently to the telephone tirade and then said, ''Listen, my friend, why don't you come to my house for a drink? It will house the more than 10,000 objects acquired by the couple. [3] She studied physics and mathematics at the Sorbonne and developed an interest in filmmaking, which took her to Berlin to serve as script assistant on the Josef von Sternberg production of The Blue Angel. And the approaching actuality still surprises her: ''It's a long way from my early days as a young wife and mother. ''John's feeling for the underdog really started in his childhood,'' says Dominique. The platform roof comprises precision-made structural elements of ferrocement and steel, engineered so as to reflect changing light conditions with great sensitivity. menil? I think they're inspired.'' 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], In addition to becoming known as collectors and patrons of art, John and Dominique de Menil were vocal champions of human rights worldwide. 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