philippa de menil

Hickey-Robertson. 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. The founders of the Dia Art Foundation have filed suit to stop the foundation from selling artworks in Dia's collection. [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. Each is not only glamorously housed in Manhattan, most of them on the Upper East Side, but also has one or two lavish residences elsewhere -Paris, Texas, the Hamptons. . The two youngest children are Francois, 41, and Philippa, 39. They hated the result, and hid it away. 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 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". John listened patiently to the telephone tirade and then said, ''Listen, my friend, why don't you come to my house for a drink? 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. ''I'm really too busy to see you today,'' she announced, and vanished. She received direct transmission from him in 1980. Beyond the family, their influence has been substantial, too. Few philanthropists of the 20th century contributed more to the American art world than Dominique and John de Menil. The Barnett Newman ''Broken Obelisk,'' made of Cor-Ten steel, stands 26 feet high in a reflecting pool that faces the chapel's entrance. Institute of Religion Accepts Controversial Broken Obelisk.. 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. Fariha, born Philippa de Menil, . (An uncle, Jean Schlumberger, helped found the celebrated literary magazine Nouvelle Revue Francaise). [33], The nearby Cy Twombly Gallery, opened in 1995, houses more than thirty of Twombly's paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. In the dining room, 18 rare chairs by the Viennese architect Josef Hoffman surround a pair of tables designed by Gwathmey. 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. To supple-ment the scanty family income, John dropped out of school to work in a bank. ''Yet I admire them, and I don't want to belittle their achievements.'' 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. 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. She spoke at the Byzantine Fresco Chapel, inaugurating the Passionate Voices series, celebrating the 10th anniversary. [10] They bought more than two hundred pieces from Klejman's New York Gallery. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. While sharing their tastes, the children have also expanded considerably their parents' life style. 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. [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. By the 1960s the de Menils had gravitated toward the major American post-war movements of abstract expressionism, pop art, and minimalism. (5) Philippa (Anne Caroline Philippa de Mnil) (born June 13, 1947) - A co-founder of the Dia Art Foundation. Georges and Lois de Menil have not lagged behind. 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. 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.'' 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 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. Actually, her children venerate Dominique almost to the point of copying her.'' [11] Influenced by the teachings of Father Couturier and Father Congar, the de Menils developed a particular humanist ethos in which they understood art as a central part of the human experience. Naturally, the artists involved - two of whom, Robert Whitman and La Monte Young, lost elaborate performance and living quarters - were hugely disappointed. Her second husband is is a German-born former art dealer, Heiner Friedrich, with whom she is deeply engaged in Sufism. Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated, they offered it to the city of Houston on condition that it be dedicated to the black leader. 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. 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. They began to concentrate on the more established Museum of Fine Arts. At that point, the de Menils began to drift away from the museum. Description Art and Activism surveys John and Dominique de Menil's projects in art, architecture, and civil and human rights, initiatives that deeply affected the city of Houston and often national and even international communities. She spoke at the Byzantine Fresco Chapel, inaugurating the Passionate Voices series, celebrating the 10th anniversary. ''It was the most extraordinary thing that ever happened in Houston.''. Dia Art Foundation, American foundation that supports contemporary art and artists, est. 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. Dominique de Menil (ne Schlumberger; March 23, 1908 December 31, 1997) was a French-American art collector, philanthropist, founder of the Menil Collection and an heiress to the Schlumberger Limited oil-equipment fortune. Schlumberger is still the global leader in well logging, and has expanded over the years into the manufacture of electric and gas meters, transformers, microcircuits, instruments and test systems for aerospace and other industries. The platform roof comprises precision-made structural elements of ferrocement and steel, engineered so as to reflect changing light conditions with great sensitivity. (Dia, the Greek. Raised a Protestant, Dominique converted to Roman Catholicism in 1932. 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. 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. [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. 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. 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. 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. ''Things just happen to me.'' (One takes off one's shoes on entering.) 1584-1586 - Franoise du Chtelet. John shot from the hip. 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 . This in turn enabled the inventors to determine the location of an oil deposit. 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. [1] She was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1986. The Rothko Chapel, with its sculpture, Barnett Newman's ''Broken Obelisk,'' expresses their involvement not only with art, but with politics and religion. ''It was very grand and typically him,'' says Adelaide. ''I'm extreme and I have strong tastes,'' says Christophe, who is also an excellent though unexhibited photographer. They are men mostly, with big egos and big ideas. You can't just expand and expand. In fact, she is referred to by her oldest son, Georges, as ''the Reverend Mother Superior.'' Website http://www.diaart.org Industries. [7] Her first husband (whom she married on May 14, 1969, in Harris County, Texas) was Italian anthropologist Francesco Pellizzi (born July 14, 1940). Designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano, co-creator of the high-tech Pompidou Center in Paris, the museum is so favorably looked upon by Houston bigwigs that more than half of its building costs are being met by local money. 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. It was inescapable. A big show of the family's art collections was held at the Grand Palais in Paris two years ago. 1576-1584 - Claude d'Anglure, nomme par le cardinal de Vaudmont, vque de Toul et maintenue par le duc de Lorraine, Charles III. Her ideas are defended by her son-the-architectural-student. I spent hours talking with John about world politics and philosophy. 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. In fact, all five de Menil children - Christophe, Adelaide, Georges, Francois and Philippa - have inherited their parents' interest in art and architecture. 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. Unlike the normal superwealthy, their pursuits do not run to clubs, yachts or horseracing. ''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. They helped make a black militant who hated white people into a humanitarian.'' 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. Initially the stated aim as written in its first report was to "plan, realise and maintain public projects of artists. Its basis was a device that was lowered by cable into the ground to measure the electrical resistance of formations in the earth. 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. de? [1], The de Menils, however, did not limit their acquisitions to modern art, and their eclectic tastes became a hallmark of their collecting practices. Date of birth 1947 Birth place Houston, USA Philippa De Menil Siblings Philippa De Menil Age 71 (approx.) To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Also expanded considerably their parents ' life style update them they bought more than two hundred pieces from 's. Chairs by the Viennese architect Josef Hoffman surround a pair of tables designed by Gwathmey of Fine Arts, Friedrich. Children venerate Dominique almost to the American art world than Dominique and John de have... To drift away from the Museum the de Menils had gravitated toward major! 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