Hugetz, Edward, and Brian Huberman. And next month, Dominique de Menil, the family matriarch (her husband John, ne Jean, died in 1973), will see the completion in Houston of a new $21 million museum known as the Menil Collection, minus the de, in the interest of simplicity. "I dreamed of preserving some of the intimacy I had enjoyed with works of art," she wrote. THE NEW BUILDING will be close to another, even more un-Houstonian de Menil monument. The two met at a ball in Versailles, and were married in 1931, when Dominique was 22 and John was 27 and working in a Paris bank. 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. Before, I did things for others, and now I'm doing something for myself. WHERE THE DE MENIL MONEY COMES FROM. Coordinated by civil rights activist and later U.S. ''At Marseilles, Mother wrapped us in our loden coats to conceal our spots, so the authorities wouldn't detain us.'' 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. 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. ''Life had been tough for him, and he saw how hard it was for some others.''. 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 . Since its 1980 high of 87 1/8 a share, the Schlumberger stock has slipped to its present $30 or so, due in part to the sluggish oil market. He met Philippa through Helen Winkler, an employee of the Menil Foundation. Actually, her children venerate Dominique almost to the point of copying her.'' Heiner's Wagnerian ambitions to serve as impresario for artists with grand-scale visions appealed to her. philippa de menilare there really purple owls. Beyond the family, their influence has been substantial, too. Most of the land and houses within a six-block radius, quietly assembled by John, are under de Menil ownership. . [25], The de Menils had originally made plans to build the Rothko Chapel in 1964 when Dominique de Menil commissioned a suite of meditative paintings by Mark Rothko for an ecumenical chapel intended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. While Georges and two of his cousins sit on the board of directors of the Schlumberger company today, the family now owns only about 25 percent of the stock. menil? Georges and Lois de Menil have not lagged behind. They were compelling.'' 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. In 1983, the foundation listed assets of approximately $30 million in art and real estate. 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. 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. Pianissimo: The Very Quiet Menil Collection., Holmes, Ann, and Patricia C. Johnson. [27], The de Menils also organized exhibitions that promoted human and civil rights, including The De Luxe Show, a 1971 exhibition of contemporary art held in Houston's Fifth Ward, a historically African-American neighborhood. 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. They buttressed a budding art history department, established an Institute for the Arts that sponsored exhibitions, lectures and events, and created an ''Art Barn'' for exhibitions. Dominique and John de Menil, circa 1967. (For their honeymoon, he took Dominique on a bus trip through Morocco.) [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. ''Each branch of the Schlumberger clan has a wing,'' Christophe explains. Both pupils received new Sufi names. 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. Guided by her longtime companion, the anthropologist Edmund Carpenter, she has acquired a formidable collection of objects from tribal cultures - Peruvian feather hangings, Polynesian sculptures, Eskimo carvings, masks by Northwest Coast Indians. (Box, page 38.) This in turn enabled the inventors to determine the location of an oil deposit. 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. Photography became an important component of the collection, which includes works by Eve Arnold, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Danny Lyon, Hans Namuth, and Eve Sonneman. You were sharing in the great adventure of making a work of art that was maybe too crazy to realize in any other way.'' 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. I'M VERY PROUD OF them,'' Dominique says of the children, ''and gratified that they have John's and my interests. (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. 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. He took the the couple around to galleries, singing the praises of the modernists. I spent hours talking with John about world politics and philosophy. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. [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. 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. As with the de Menils' Houston home, by Texas standards the building is more than a little understated. ''I get that so much from my mother - decide what you're aiming at and strike out after it. In 1949 they commissioned the architect Philip Johnson to design their home in the River Oaks neighborhood in Houston. To suggest the institution's role in enabling such ambitions, they selected the name "Dia," taken from the Greek word meaning "through." 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Inevitably, John's impulse to control brought him into conflict with other trustees, notably John Blaffer, son of a powerful Houston family. 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. Heiner has helped me step out into life.''. [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. 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. In 1986, de Menil deepened her involvement in social causes, establishing the Carter-Menil Human Rights Foundation with former president Jimmy Carter to "promote the protection of human rights throughout the world". 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. [2] Contents 1 Early life 2 Collecting art 3 Art patron So hooked were they that, ''We went crazy,'' says Dominique. Says Dominique, ''The idea of the foundation was marvelous, and they've done great things. Indeed, Adelaide has recently given the museum an important piece from her collection. 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. After his death, he lay in state, wrapped in a sheet in his own bed. [1] She was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1986. A new board was appointed. 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. She spoke at the Byzantine Fresco Chapel, inaugurating the Passionate Voices series, celebrating the 10th anniversary. In 1974, Fr [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. 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. In fact, all five de Menil children - Christophe, Adelaide, Georges, Francois and Philippa - have inherited their parents' interest in art and architecture. Fariha, born Philippa de Menil, . [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. They ultimately amassed more than 17,000 paintings, sculptures, decorative objects, prints, drawings, photographs, and rare books. ''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. ''We even borrowed money to buy art. 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. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. (Brought up a Protestant, she converted to Catholicism to marry John.) The de Menil museum in Houston, with its big main-floor display space and a second floor for open storage of art objects, embodies her vision of a museum as a place of ''beauty and enchantment, even before it's a teaching institution, a place where things can be seen on multiple levels, with a relationship made between the objects and the way they are presented.'' (5) Philippa (Anne Caroline Philippa de Mnil) (born June 13, 1947) - A co-founder of the Dia Art Foundation. de? The rest of John's and Dominique's estates would go to their own causes. 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. On the other hand, she can be imperious. Their fervor spilled over into us. [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". 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. 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. 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. They gave major gifts of art to the school, bought land to expand the campus and hired Philip Johnson to design new buildings. It serves the vi-sion of a place ''for people in search of peace, meditation and a more intense consciousness of our time.'' 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. 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 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. 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. [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. Inheritance (oil) 20th-century art Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Overview Newswire RobbReport ''Yet I admire them, and I don't want to belittle their achievements.'' Casey Lesser. [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. Gifts of art, '' she wrote almost to the point of copying her..! 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