Whitman brought a suit against Dia, which is pending. 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. 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. "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. You can't just expand and expand. (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.'') 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. But we are definitely a collection of people very much influenced by John and Dominique. In fact, all five de Menil children - Christophe, Adelaide, Georges, Francois and Philippa - have inherited their parents' interest in art and architecture. 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. 1529-1538 - Philippa de Ligniville, fille de Jean de Ligniville et de Jeanne d'Oiselet. ''I get that so much from my mother - decide what you're aiming at and strike out after it. Philippa de Menil. 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. 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. 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. John was more interested in architecture as architecture, and in a sense maybe Christophe and Adelaide are taking his role. 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. So hooked were they that, ''We went crazy,'' says Dominique. She began to collect work by contemporary Americans even before her parents did, and exerted considerable influence on their acquisitions in the field. The founders had . Inheritance (oil) 20th-century art Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Icon Link Plus Icon; Overview Newswire RobbReport [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. 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. THE COUPLE'S MOST INTENSE Houston involvement was with St. Thomas University, a small Catholic college. Back came a cable: ''BUY WHOLE SHOW.'' 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. 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. A new board was appointed. Both pupils received new Sufi names. Dominique and John de Menil, circa 1967. 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. 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. 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. (5) Philippa (Anne Caroline Philippa de Mnil) (born June 13, 1947) - A co-founder of the Dia Art Foundation. They began to concentrate on the more established Museum of Fine Arts. In 1980, the woman she was had become a Sufi dervish named Fariha al-Jerrahi, and when the house of Dia fell, she moved on. Articles in Zest section The Menil Opens.. she asked, in genuine surprise. She received direct transmission from him in 1980. WHERE THE DE MENIL MONEY COMES FROM. [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. '', ''I wanted a functional museum and they wanted great architecture,'' comments Dominique. Collector-watchers point out, however, that - starting later and with less money - the de Menils have not yet managed to give us the equivalent of the Cloisters, the Museum of Modern art and Colonial Williamsburg. In 1949 they commissioned the architect Philip Johnson to design their home in the River Oaks neighborhood in Houston. The chapel, opened in 1971, is an all-faith center, a ''no man's land of God,'' Dominique says. which cannot be easily produced, fi-nanced or owned by individual collectors because of their cost and magnitude". His interest in architecture, he says, comes from his father and from working with Charles Gwathmey, who designed his East Hampton house. 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. ''I was interested in art, but shy and out of contact with the art world. 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. Eventually - despite their contributions of time and art - their ambitious projects brought them into conflict with budget-minded trustees. [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. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. 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. Philippa De Menil Bio Details Full name Philippa De Menil Gender Female Age 71 (approx.) 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. In 1974, the two formed the Dia Foundation - the name is Greek for catalyst - subsidized solely by Philippa's shares in Schlumberger Ltd. Dia soon became one of the largest and most venturesome nonprofit funding sources in the field of contemporary art, buying up the works of certain artists -more than 125 of John Chamberlain's sculptures of crushed auto parts, for example - and sponsoring projects that range from Walter de Maria's permanent ''earth sculpture,'' comprising 280,000 pounds of dirt that fill a gallery in a SoHo building, to the vast ''Art Museum of the Pecos,'' in Marfa, Tex., a compound of more than 340 acres which has deployed an array of indoor and outdoor works by Donald Judd and other artists. I try to stay close to them, and as time goes on, we are more and more in touch.'' Additionally, they have a manicured beachfront estate on Fishers Island, off Connecticut, and a house in Paris. In 1983, the foundation listed assets of approximately $30 million in art and real estate. Her second husband is is a German-born former art dealer, Heiner Friedrich, with whom she is deeply engaged in Sufism. This in turn enabled the inventors to determine the location of an oil deposit. 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. Menil Archives, The Menil Collection, Houston. It was there that the de Menils began their institutional involvement with art. 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. Dia was founded in New York City in 1974 by Philippa de Menil, Heiner Friedrich, and Helen Winkler to help artists achieve visionary projects that might not otherwise be realized because of scale or scope. 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. And there is no question that Houston's cultural establishment takes the new museum quite seriously. ''John's feeling for the underdog really started in his childhood,'' says Dominique. Carr, Annemarie Weyl, and Laurence J. Morrocco. 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. He was my particular nemesis. "I dreamed of preserving some of the intimacy I had enjoyed with works of art," she wrote. Born 1947 Start a FameChain Trivia Philippa De Menil Family View Philippa De Menil's Family Tree and History, Ancestry and Genealogy Dominique emphasizes that it's a very ''personal'' assemblage, ''idiosyncratic,'' with major gaps. Spurred in part by the lack of a real arts community in Houston,[13] in the 1950s and 1960s the de Menils promoted modern art through exhibitions held at the Contemporary Arts Association (later the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston), such as Max Ernst's first solo exhibition in the United States, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, to which they gave important gifts of art. ''Christophe and I had chicken pox,'' remembers Adelaide. 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. 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. A European artist, who is a friend of Adelaide's and Ted's, remembers making an appointment through them to see Dominique on a visit to Houston. He did. ''They came as intellectuals to an intellectual void,'' says Isaac Arnold Jr., chairman of Houston's Museum of Fine Arts and also of Quintana Petroleum. Giovannini, Joseph. ''But there were all these weird paintings hanging on the walls,'' she says. In 1960 they launched the ambitious scholarly research project "The Image of the Black in Western Art," directed by art historian Ladislas Bugner. The de Menils' involvement with blacks has not only been on the political level. During an earlier school board election, the de Menils helped launch the political career of Mickey Leland, a young black militant from Houston's grubby Fifth Ward, who is now serving his fourth term in the United States Congress. Staff Interface | ArchivesSpace.org | Hosted by LYRASIS, Art and soul of GZ [ground zero] imams holy-pal heiress, 2010-09-27. 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. 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.'' 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. They have been adventurous patrons, perhaps less concerned than many with the kudos and the cash that go with art patronage in American society. He met Philippa through Helen Winkler, an employee of the Menil Foundation. She says now that she never imagined their acquisitions would someday fill a museum. But, he says, ''I was fortunate to be exposed to their interest in art as part of the natural fabric of life. 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.'' 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. 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". They helped make a black militant who hated white people into a humanitarian.'' 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. Beyond the family, their influence has been substantial, too. An 11th-century abbey revamped during the 18th century, the chateau has perhaps 100 rooms. 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. 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. philippa de menilare there really purple owls. Few philanthropists of the 20th century contributed more to the American art world than Dominique and John de Menil. And she goes on collecting - though at a much slower pace, she says, because prices have risen so high. [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. ''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. It serves the vi-sion of a place ''for people in search of peace, meditation and a more intense consciousness of our time.'' 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. 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. 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. Philippa and her husband Heiner have made over a former apartment building into a townhouse. 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. The reunited family went to Houston, then the American headquarters for the company. ''It was very grand and typically him,'' says Adelaide. 2003), the world's largest contemporary art museum, located in Beacon, N.Y. A converted factory, it contains unusually large unbroken spaces, ideal for exhibiting the frequently monumental and often minimalist (see minimalism) art and large-scale installations Dia favors. Their fervor spilled over into us. And several years ago, when they were agitating in Albany for legislation on fishing rights. she subsidized a lobbying effort on their behalf. 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 . Rites were performed not only by a Catholic prelate, but a black Baptist minister, a rabbi, and a Buddhist priest. More than 1,000 mourners, an international assemblage including a local contingent of Black Panthers - to whom John had given money for setting up a free children's breakfast program - turned out in a heavy rainstorm. They have sold off a good deal of it over the years, and diversified their holdings. Christophe, who at 53 is the oldest (and a grandmother of three, by her daughter Taya) has always been attuned to the avant-garde. Expansive main-floor displays will be made up of works in the storage areas, with space set aside for the spectacular theme shows that Dominique and the museum's director, Walter Hopps, have been doing together for years. You can look up the words in the phrase individually using these links: philippa? 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. While the two had mutual feelings for art and social problems, Dominique was reticent and understated, John was ebullient, opinionated, action-oriented. In return for her efforts, the Holy Bishopric of Cyprus allowed the works to remain in Houston on a 20-year loan. 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. In fact, its long, low bulk looks more like, say, the suburban branch of an elegant department store. She spoke at the Byzantine Fresco Chapel, inaugurating the Passionate Voices series, celebrating the 10th anniversary. (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. I never really wanted to collect, but the idea of a foundation that would help artists build excited me. I think they're inspired.'' 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. [1] She was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1986. It was inescapable. ''If only my father could see him now,'' his sister Adelaide has remarked proudly. Woe Follows the Obelisk., Hobdy, D. J. ''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. Inevitably, John's impulse to control brought him into conflict with other trustees, notably John Blaffer, son of a powerful Houston family. Christophe, for example, was once chided by an East Hampton hostess for not showing up at a party. ALTHOUGH DOMI-nique's children function in somewhat lower gear, they also have made ambitious forays into - and even careers in - the arts. As a result, Georges's wife Lois has been appointed to Dia's reconstituted board, and Heiner has resigned. Says Dominique, ''The idea of the foundation was marvelous, and they've done great things. Indeed, shuttling among residences in Houston, New York and Paris, Dominique has a heavy agenda. 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 1930 she met the banker Jean de Mnil (who later anglicized his name to John de Menil), and they were married the next year. Before, I did things for others, and now I'm doing something for myself. [2] Contents 1 Early life 2 Collecting art 3 Art patron The minute the cops arrive, they form ranks. 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. Ibish, Yusuf, and Peter Lamborn Wilson, eds. Perhaps the closest of the children to her late father, who was an outspoken liberal drawn to minority causes, Adelaide has developed an interest in the lives of the ''bonackers,'' the vanishing tribe of fishermen and their families native to the eastern tip of Long Island. Their actions in Houston focused upon the Civil Rights Movement in particular. The Fathers, too, can now see both sides. ''Ted really started it - he saved an old house that was going to be demolished, and so we bought the land,'' she says. [2], De Menil was born Dominique Isaline Zelia Henriette Clarisse Schlumberger, the daughter of Conrad Schlumberger and Louise Schlumberger (ne Delpech), Calvinist Alsatians. The two youngest children are Francois, 41, and Philippa, 39. Indeed, Adelaide has recently given the museum an important piece from her collection. 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. 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. Photo by Michael Schmelling [1] American Sufi leader THE DE MENILS' civil-rights activities earned them epithets ranging from '''radical chic'' to ''Communist.'' Although family members say that the decline has affected them ''minimally,'' Dominique de Menil notes, ''A lot has been eroded. He later realized who had delivered the manuscript and wrote her a note.'' Ironically, planned in a time of boom for Houston, the museum will be finished in a time of bust, due to falling oil prices. 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. After a substantial inheritance from their Schlumberger grandmother, nothing more would be forthcoming, the children were given to understand. ''It gives us a strong family feeling.''. Francois, who stopped making films (''I was dissatisfied with what I was doing and felt a change would be good''), is still elated over his admission to The Cooper Union, achieved in part by hiring special tutors to prepare him in necessary disciplines, such as mathematics. 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. 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. At the sale, Dominique bought a Barnett Newman and Adelaide picked up her first de Kooning.) Like the Rockefellers, the de Menils are distinguished by the variety and scope of their art interests. She also established the scar Romero Award, named after the slain El Salvadoran bishop. They ultimately amassed more than 17,000 paintings, sculptures, decorative objects, prints, drawings, photographs, and rare books. 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? Soon, Rice was a beehive of arts activities. Behind that fragile, otherworldly facade is a complex person of very ambitious reach.''. 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. 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. The building was designed by architect Francois de Menil and mimics the original Lysi chapel. [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. The work these artists made changed, or at least questioned, the nature of art: what it. 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 . It is often cited as one of the most significant privately assembled art collections, alongside the Barnes Foundation and the J. Paul Getty Museum. ''Before that it was the old Bourbon alliance, blue-collar whites and white-collar businessmen. [7], The de Menils were particularly interested in modern European art, and a core strength of the collection was the many Cubist, Surrealist, and other Modernist works they acquired. Dominique Isaline Zelia Henriette Clarisse Schlumberger. ''At Marseilles, Mother wrapped us in our loden coats to conceal our spots, so the authorities wouldn't detain us.'' 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. Raised in a code of stern Protestant morality, Dominique is quite prepared to give a million to a worthy cause, but not to spend money on such frivolities as taxis, according to Edmund (Ted) Carpenter.

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