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[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". 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. 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. 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 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. 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. 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. On the other hand, she can be imperious. The family was met in Havana by John, who - having joined Schlumberger in 1938 - had been in Rumania, overseeing Schlumberger operations there, as well as putting sand into the gear boxes of Rumanian trains carrying oil to Germany. [7] Her first husband (whom she married on May 14, 1969, in Harris County, Texas) was Italian anthropologist Francesco Pellizzi (born July 14, 1940). she subsidized a lobbying effort on their behalf. After moving to Houston, the de Menils quickly became key figures in the city's developing cultural life as advocates of modern art and architecture. 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 . [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. (Spookily enough, another dwelling she had built on the same site about 20 years ago met the same end.) ''Yet I admire them, and I don't want to belittle their achievements.'' 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. 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. The rest of John's and Dominique's estates would go to their own causes. She has organized a forthcoming book ''Men's Lives'' - with specially commissioned photographs, and a text by Peter Matthiessen -about them. 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. You can look up the words in the phrase individually using these links: philippa? There are some who think they're crazy. Few philanthropists of the 20th century contributed more to the American art world than Dominique and John de Menil. He did. 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. 1584-1586 - Franoise du Chtelet. She is not a ''go-getter,'' she insists in her French-tinged English. The building was designed by architect Francois de Menil and mimics the original Lysi chapel. In 1974, Fr In fact, its long, low bulk looks more like, say, the suburban branch of an elegant department store. 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. 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. And the approaching actuality still surprises her: ''It's a long way from my early days as a young wife and mother. The reunited family went to Houston, then the American headquarters for the company. ''She feels a museum is all about interior spaces. You can't just expand and expand. 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. ''He reminds me of my father,'' she says, ''with his strong idealism and willingness to undertake certain things that others wouldn't. 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. 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. There was a moral obligation to get involved with their involvements. ''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. "[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. 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. [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. At that point, the de Menils began to drift away from the museum. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. De Menil died in Houston on December 31, 1997. And she goes on collecting - though at a much slower pace, she says, because prices have risen so high. The minute the cops arrive, they form ranks. Friedrich has exhibited works by Blinky Palermo, Walter De Maria, Donald Judd, La Monte Young, Andy Warhol, Michael Heizer, and Joseph Beuys, among others in his galleries in Germany, but became less interested in short term gallery installations and through Dia began to collect, and support majo 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. 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. In return for her efforts, the Holy Bishopric of Cyprus allowed the works to remain in Houston on a 20-year loan. 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. She grew up, the middle sister of three, watching her physicist father, Conrad Schlumberger, struggle to perfect his invention, an electric measuring device that disclosed the location of oil deposits. A former film maker, short-time magazine publisher, pilot and hell-raiser who never finished college, Fran,cois - who has his father's baby face - is now a hard-working architectural student at The Cooper Union. '', ''I wanted a functional museum and they wanted great architecture,'' comments Dominique. 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. 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. [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. 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. They established the university's Media Center in 1967. [5] [26] It was established as an autonomous organization the next year and began hosting colloquia, beginning with "Traditional Modes of Contemplation and Action," which brought together religious leaders, scholars, and musicians from four continents. It was there that the de Menils began their institutional involvement with art. ''It was the most extraordinary thing that ever happened in Houston.''. To supple-ment the scanty family income, John dropped out of school to work in a bank. 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. '', Because Dominique saw ''collecting'' as pretentious, she was reluctant until recently to use the term. [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. They have sold off a good deal of it over the years, and diversified their holdings. Born 1947 Start a FameChain Trivia Philippa De Menil Family View Philippa De Menil's Family Tree and History, Ancestry and Genealogy 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. Until very recently, Christophe also had a sizable house in East Hampton, but it burned down during Hurricane Gloria last fall. 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. THE DE MENIL FAMILY: THE MEDICI OF MODERN ART, https://www.nytimes.com/1986/05/18/magazine/the-de-menil-family-the-medici-of-modern-art.html. Heiner Friedrich is an art dealer and collector of minimal art and conceptual art. 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. [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. 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. While fostering bonds with the greater Sufi & Muslim American communities, the role of women in Islam and spiritual ecology have been of special importance to her message. 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. As a result, Georges's wife Lois has been appointed to Dia's reconstituted board, and Heiner has resigned. 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. ''Christophe and I had chicken pox,'' remembers Adelaide. Hugetz, Edward, and Brian Huberman. 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. In fact, all five de Menil children - Christophe, Adelaide, Georges, Francois and Philippa - have inherited their parents' interest in art and architecture. 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. key biscayne triathlon 2022 He met Philippa through Helen Winkler, an employee of the Menil Foundation. The day and hour were set, with Dominique's agreement. 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 . 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. 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.'' Heiner's Wagnerian ambitions to serve as impresario for artists with grand-scale visions appealed to her. menil? They were compelling.'' Heiner has helped me step out into life.''. 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. ''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.'' His interest in architecture, he says, comes from his father and from working with Charles Gwathmey, who designed his East Hampton house. Its basis was a device that was lowered by cable into the ground to measure the electrical resistance of formations in the earth. Philippa de Menil New York. BUT, AS DOMINIQUE likes to point out, she and John didn't start out rich. ''I'm really too busy to see you today,'' she announced, and vanished. 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. He was my particular nemesis. ''Mother lives at two levels,'' says Georges. And there is no question that Houston's cultural establishment takes the new museum quite seriously. The founders of the Dia Art Foundation have filed suit to stop the foundation from selling artworks in Dia's collection. ''I went to breakfast, lunch and dinner at their house and met every important person they knew. (A question mark next to a word above means that we couldn't find it, but clicking the word might provide spelling suggestions.) 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. 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. 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. Dominique, who maintains three homes herself, shakes her head indulgently over their ''extravagance.''. Christophe, for example, was once chided by an East Hampton hostess for not showing up at a party. Friedrich and his then wife Philippa de Menil, together with Helen Winkler, established the Dia Art Foundation in 1973. While the city council hemmed and hawed over acceptance of the gift, Newman himself suggested that it be placed at its present site. [1], In addition to becoming known as collectors and patrons of art, John and Dominique de Menil were vocal champions of human rights worldwide. [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. Photography became an important component of the collection, which includes works by Eve Arnold, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Danny Lyon, Hans Namuth, and Eve Sonneman. [1] American Sufi leader Sheikha. 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. 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. 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.'' ''Before that it was the old Bourbon alliance, blue-collar whites and white-collar businessmen. "The Memory of Rossellini in Texas." ''If it hadn't been for them, we wouldn't be here,'' says Father Frank H. Bredeweg, now president of the college. They are men mostly, with big egos and big ideas. 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. 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. battle of omdurman order of battle. She has now turned her East Side carriage house into a fashion atelier. Philippa De Menil Bio Details Full name Philippa De Menil Gender Female Age 71 (approx.) Giovannini, Joseph. 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. ''Christophe and I had chicken pox, '' she insists in her French-tinged English Bishopric Cyprus... 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