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. His interest in architecture, he says, comes from his father and from working with Charles Gwathmey, who designed his East Hampton house. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. 1538-1576 - Anne de Barbay, fille de Guyot de Barbay et d'Anne de Frenelle. Dominique's way of not always paying full attention to this world has been transmitted to some of her offspring. She spoke at the Byzantine Fresco Chapel, inaugurating the Passionate Voices series, celebrating the 10th anniversary. 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. Hopps, a well known presence in the field of contemporary art, comes from California and made a reputation early on as director of the esteemed Pasadena Museum of Art. ''He reminds me of my father,'' she says, ''with his strong idealism and willingness to undertake certain things that others wouldn't. tion in 1974, run by Philippa de Menil, Heiner Friedrich and Helen Winkler. Its basis was a device that was lowered by cable into the ground to measure the electrical resistance of formations in the earth. A big show of the family's art collections was held at the Grand Palais in Paris two years ago. I wanted a wooden one.''. Dominique Isaline Zelia Henriette Clarisse Schlumberger. 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 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. (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. [22], Their most controversial action on behalf of civil rights was their offer of Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk as a partial gift to the city of Houston in 1969, on the condition that it be dedicated to the recently assassinated Martin Luther King Jr.[23] The city refused the gift, sparking a controversial debate[24] that ended only when the de Menils purchased the sculpture themselves and placed it in front of the newly completed Rothko Chapel. (For their honeymoon, he took Dominique on a bus trip through Morocco.) 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 Rothko Chapel, with its sculpture, Barnett Newman's ''Broken Obelisk,'' expresses their involvement not only with art, but with politics and religion. She also established the scar Romero Award, named after the slain El Salvadoran bishop. THE NEW BUILDING will be close to another, even more un-Houstonian de Menil monument. 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. 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. In 1983, the foundation listed assets of approximately $30 million in art and real estate. In a stronghold of segregation, they not only backed civil rights and Martin Luther King, but entertained blacks at dinner. 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. 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 studied mathematics and physics at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1927-28 . Says Dominique, ''The idea of the foundation was marvelous, and they've done great things. 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. '', AT 78, DOMINIQUE IS A HANDSOME WOMAN OF frail, unassuming presence, whose ''spiritual'' mien and austere garb evoke the image of a medieval saint. * In the early 1990s Dia became a 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. [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. 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. 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 . ''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. 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. 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. (5) Philippa (Anne Caroline Philippa de Mnil) (born June 13, 1947) - A co-founder of the Dia Art Foundation. 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. 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. 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. Photography became an important component of the collection, which includes works by Eve Arnold, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Danny Lyon, Hans Namuth, and Eve Sonneman. 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. The rest of John's and Dominique's estates would go to their own causes. Philippa de Menil New York. So hooked were they that, ''We went crazy,'' says Dominique. As a trustee there, John was responsible in 1961 for bringing in as director the distinguished but controversial James Johnson Sweeney, former director of the Guggenheim Museum in New York. ''I went to breakfast, lunch and dinner at their house and met every important person they knew. [1] After Jermayne MacAgy's death in 1964, de Menil took over her classes and became the chairperson of the art department at the University of St. Thomas, curating several exhibitions over the next few years. While the two had mutual feelings for art and social problems, Dominique was reticent and understated, John was ebullient, opinionated, action-oriented. And I loathed the black-tiled floor. And she was surrounded by accomplished relatives. Woe Follows the Obelisk., Hobdy, D. J. Schlumberger, Dominique. 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. 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. Menil Archives, The Menil Collection, Houston. 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. Ironically, planned in a time of boom for Houston, the museum will be finished in a time of bust, due to falling oil prices. [1], She was born in 1947 into a socially committed, eclectic French Catholic family in Houston, Texas. 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. 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. 1974 by art dealer Heiner Friedrich and his wife, art patron Philippa de Menil. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. 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. They hated the result, and hid it away. (The two recently returned from a trek to western Tibet to take in the ruins of an 11th-century Buddhist temple.) 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. [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. (Spookily enough, another dwelling she had built on the same site about 20 years ago met the same end.) 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. "[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. Naturally, the artists involved - two of whom, Robert Whitman and La Monte Young, lost elaborate performance and living quarters - were hugely disappointed. [30], In the 1980s de Menil again began looking for an architect to design the museum, eventually commissioning Renzo Piano, a renowned Italian architect known for his provocative Centre Georges Pompidou building in Paris, to come up with a design that would fit her vision for the museum. ''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. ''We didn't really buy art, because we didn't have the money and we didn't think of it,'' says Dominique, whose scientist father considered spending money on art frivolous. 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. 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. Inevitably, John's impulse to control brought him into conflict with other trustees, notably John Blaffer, son of a powerful Houston family. Not helpful? As with the de Menils' Houston home, by Texas standards the building is more than a little understated. 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. 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. This in turn enabled the inventors to determine the location of an oil deposit. The children and their mother also occasionally drop in on Val-Richer, the vast estate in Normandy passed down by Schlumberger ancestors. 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. What they do should be balanced against what's possible.''. ''Ted really started it - he saved an old house that was going to be demolished, and so we bought the land,'' she says. which cannot be easily produced, fi-nanced or owned by individual collectors because of their cost and magnitude". Apr 18, 2018 1:37PM. Dominique, who was courted by other cities, says that the museum is in Houston because ''I was so encouraged here.'' By the 1960s the de Menils had gravitated toward the major American post-war movements of abstract expressionism, pop art, and minimalism. 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. [2][3][4][5] Sheikh Muzaffer also gave direct transmission to fellow American dervish Sheikh Nur al-Anwar al-Jerrahi, who envisioned a radical and illumined path of the heart which he called Universal Islam. But one family member suggests that the figure ''could easily be twice that amount.'' [1] She was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1986. 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. He was my particular nemesis. She has organized a forthcoming book ''Men's Lives'' - with specially commissioned photographs, and a text by Peter Matthiessen -about them. Actually, her children venerate Dominique almost to the point of copying her.'' Essays and short texts describe the de Menils' collecting; their patronage of modern architecture; their promotion of film as an art form; their struggles . Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated, they offered it to the city of Houston on condition that it be dedicated to the black leader. (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.) 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. At the sale, Dominique bought a Barnett Newman and Adelaide picked up her first de Kooning.) Until very recently, Christophe also had a sizable house in East Hampton, but it burned down during Hurricane Gloria last fall. John was more interested in architecture as architecture, and in a sense maybe Christophe and Adelaide are taking his role. (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.'') They gave major gifts of art to the school, bought land to expand the campus and hired Philip Johnson to design new buildings. 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. ''It was the most extraordinary thing that ever happened in Houston.''. For example, use [33], The nearby Cy Twombly Gallery, opened in 1995, houses more than thirty of Twombly's paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. Dominique de Menil, the daughter of Conrad Schlumberger and his wife, Louise Delpech, was born in Paris on March 23, 1908. It is often cited as one of the most significant privately assembled art collections, alongside the Barnes Foundation and the J. Paul Getty Museum. ''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. 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. 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. They established the university's Media Center in 1967. .''. Ever since, Dia's mission has been to commission, support, and present site-specific long-term installations and single-artists exhibitions to the public. (Box, page 38.) In return for her efforts, the Holy Bishopric of Cyprus allowed the works to remain in Houston on a 20-year loan. 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