Sheikha. Brennan, Marcia, Alfred Pacquement, and Ann Temkin. ''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. 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. Expanding. Website http://www.diaart.org Industries. A painter himself, he had been a prime mover in the commissioning of Leger, Matisse and Rouault to do work for churches in France. The Rothko Chapel, with its sculpture, Barnett Newman's ''Broken Obelisk,'' expresses their involvement not only with art, but with politics and religion. . 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. They helped make a black militant who hated white people into a humanitarian.'' They hated the result, and hid it away. 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. Their collection was motivated by their shared interest in the many ways individuals over different cultures and eras reveal through art their understanding of what it means to be human.[7]. But as a friend notes, ''She is maybe not so much a collector as a catalyst who makes things happen.'' Dia Art Foundation, American foundation that supports contemporary art and artists, est. 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. And Donald Judd has gone public with vociferous denunciations of the foundation, which is now but a shadow of itself. '', ''I wanted a functional museum and they wanted great architecture,'' comments Dominique. 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. "The Memory of Rossellini in Texas." 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. 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. Byzantine Fresco Chapel, Passionate Voices: Unveiling of Love, The [lecture by Fariha de Menil Friedrich], 2007-03-24, 2007-08-07, Eine multikulturelle Familie macht Kulturpolitik, 1997-10-02, Magnificent milestone: The Menil turns 20, 2007-06-03, Menils Everyday People captures human detail, 2007-04-12. (5) Philippa (Anne Caroline Philippa de Mnil) (born June 13, 1947) - A co-founder of the Dia Art Foundation. Christophe, who at 53 is the oldest (and a grandmother of three, by her daughter Taya) has always been attuned to the avant-garde. 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. 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. She spoke at the Byzantine Fresco Chapel, inaugurating the Passionate Voices series, celebrating the 10th anniversary. 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. The Dan Flavin installation consists of two horizontal green fluorescent lights on the eastern and western sides of the building's exterior, two sets of diagonal white lights on the foyer walls, and a large work in the main interior space featuring pink, yellow, green, blue, and ultraviolet lights. 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. Dominique, who maintains three homes herself, shakes her head indulgently over their ''extravagance.''. The chapel, opened in 1971, is an all-faith center, a ''no man's land of God,'' Dominique says. Then you can see how a Communist lives.'' ''If it hadn't been for them, we wouldn't be here,'' says Father Frank H. Bredeweg, now president of the college. [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. 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. 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. Born 1947 Start a FameChain Trivia Philippa De Menil Family View Philippa De Menil's Family Tree and History, Ancestry and Genealogy 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. 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. menil? Plans called for Bob Dylan to sing at the service, but he was unavailable, and a tape was played of John's Dylan favorites. de? And I loathed the black-tiled floor. [35], De Menil's final project was a 1996 commission of three site-specific light installations by Minimalist sculptor Dan Flavin for Richmond Hall, a former Weingarten's grocery store in Houston. 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. She badly needed a religion.''. It serves the vi-sion of a place ''for people in search of peace, meditation and a more intense consciousness of our time.'' 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. ''But there were all these weird paintings hanging on the walls,'' she says. The work these artists made changed, or at least questioned, the nature of art: what it. They actually maintained their support here for six or seven years before it began to happen.'' (Once, for instance, he surprised the dance critic Jill Johnston with a round-trip ticket to England, so she could visit her birthplace.) 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 founders had . [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. ''It began to look more like de Menil University than St. Thomas. 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. They have been adventurous patrons, perhaps less concerned than many with the kudos and the cash that go with art patronage in American society. Its basis was a device that was lowered by cable into the ground to measure the electrical resistance of formations in the earth. Rites were performed not only by a Catholic prelate, but a black Baptist minister, a rabbi, and a Buddhist priest. 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. 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. ''I'm really too busy to see you today,'' she announced, and vanished. So hooked were they that, ''We went crazy,'' says Dominique. "I dreamed of preserving some of the intimacy I had enjoyed with works of art," she wrote. 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. [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". ''', Dominique's craving found expression during the couple's frequent visits to New York in the 40's and 50's, where they met Father Marie-Alain Couturier, a French Dominican priest who spent the war years there. Like the other children, he realizes fully that his parents are a difficult act to follow. Initially the stated aim as written in its first report was to "plan, realise and maintain public projects of artists. 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. Actually, her children venerate Dominique almost to the point of copying her.'' She is not a ''go-getter,'' she insists in her French-tinged English. ''Not only were they considered radical, but really different. 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. 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. [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. she subsidized a lobbying effort on their behalf. Congressman Mickey Leland, it was one of the first racially integrated art shows in the United States.[28]. Photo by Michael Schmelling 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. But one family member suggests that the figure ''could easily be twice that amount.'' Whitman brought a suit against Dia, which is pending. In the dining room, 18 rare chairs by the Viennese architect Josef Hoffman surround a pair of tables designed by Gwathmey. 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. 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