philippa de menil

''It gives us a strong family feeling.''. The platform roof comprises precision-made structural elements of ferrocement and steel, engineered so as to reflect changing light conditions with great sensitivity. v t e 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. Brennan, Marcia, Alfred Pacquement, and Ann Temkin. 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. 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. Of the siblings, she has also undertaken the most wildly ambitious involvement with the arts, as patron of the financially troubled Dia Foundation, whose aim is to support venturesome artists' projects of a nature or scale that make it difficult to obtain other backing. Also on display in Richmond Hall are four examples of Flavin's "monuments" to V. Tatlin, created between 1964 and 1969.[1][36]. And the approaching actuality still surprises her: ''It's a long way from my early days as a young wife and mother. ''Ted really started it - he saved an old house that was going to be demolished, and so we bought the land,'' she says. [29] The Foundation offered the CarterMenil Human Rights Prize, sponsored by the Rothko Chapel, to organizations or individuals for their commitment to human rights. His interest in architecture, he says, comes from his father and from working with Charles Gwathmey, who designed his East Hampton house. She badly needed a 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. ''Things just happen to me.'' Georges and Lois de Menil have not lagged behind. 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.'' 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. 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. 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. 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 Fariha, born Philippa de Menil, . In 1974, Fr An 11th-century abbey revamped during the 18th century, the chateau has perhaps 100 rooms. Institute of Religion Accepts Controversial Broken Obelisk.. 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. There are some who think they're crazy. Dominique de Menil, the daughter of Conrad Schlumberger and his wife, Louise Delpech, was born in Paris on March 23, 1908. I try to stay close to them, and as time goes on, we are more and more in touch.'' In 1983, the foundation listed assets of approximately $30 million in art and real estate. 1529-1538 - Philippa de Ligniville, fille de Jean de Ligniville et de Jeanne d'Oiselet. key biscayne triathlon 2022 After being met with increasing resistance by the more traditional Basilian clergy at the University of St. Thomas, in 1969 the de Menils moved the art departmentincluding the art history facultyand Media Center to Rice University, where they founded the Institute for the Arts to manage the exhibition program at Rice Museum. ''What I inherited was my mother's craving. 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. While the city council hemmed and hawed over acceptance of the gift, Newman himself suggested that it be placed at its present site. They have sold off a good deal of it over the years, and diversified their holdings. ''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. The de Menils often personally recruited faculty members for the departments and brought many renowned artists and art historians to Houston, including Marcel Duchamp, Roberto Matta, and James Johnson Sweeney, whom they convinced to serve as museum director for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston from 1961 to 1967. Their actions in Houston focused upon the Civil Rights Movement in particular. Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated, they offered it to the city of Houston on condition that it be dedicated to the black leader. 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. A local citizen once called John up and railed against him as a ''red'' for his support of King. 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. (A question mark next to a word above means that we couldn't find it, but clicking the word might provide spelling suggestions.) 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. An economist, with a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he has taught at Princeton and is founding director of the economics research division of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris, where he is a professor and where he spends time teaching each year. '', Because Dominique saw ''collecting'' as pretentious, she was reluctant until recently to use the term. Now I have a vocation and much better bearings.''. Fariha Friedrichwhich is the name Philippa de Menil assumed after she and Heiner Friedrich embraced Sufi Islam and married in 1979was talking about the beginning of their foundation. The day and hour were set, with Dominique's agreement. 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. To supple-ment the scanty family income, John dropped out of school to work in a bank. Designed by Renzo Piano, the permanent gallery echoes some of the architectural features of the Menil Collection, such as the use of diffused natural light, while retaining its own, separate identity. [12] The de Menils filled their home with art and hosted many of the leading artists, scientists, civil rights activists, and intellectuals of the day. 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. She has organized a forthcoming book ''Men's Lives'' - with specially commissioned photographs, and a text by Peter Matthiessen -about them. John and Dominique de Menil also shared an interest in photography, inviting photographers to come to Houston to document events in the city and exhibit their work. ''Before that it was the old Bourbon alliance, blue-collar whites and white-collar businessmen. Her ideas are defended by her son-the-architectural-student. Described by another friend as a ''warm, impulsive, kind person who is something of a mark,'' Christophe, in designing costumes for Wilson's theater pieces, discovered a talent for inventing clothes, and has recently set up as a couturier. ''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. ''John's feeling for the underdog really started in his childhood,'' says Dominique. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. "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. The Barnett Newman ''Broken Obelisk,'' made of Cor-Ten steel, stands 26 feet high in a reflecting pool that faces the chapel's entrance. ''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. 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. (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. As with the de Menils' Houston home, by Texas standards the building is more than a little understated. T HE SECOND-GENERATION de Menils all have established their own lives and embarked on their own projects - though none, perhaps, with the drive and range of their parents' activities. By the 1960s the de Menils had gravitated toward the major American post-war movements of abstract expressionism, pop art, and minimalism. .''. Actually, her children venerate Dominique almost to the point of copying her.'' Expanding. ''', 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. [2], Sheikha Fariha al-Jerrahi leads devotional prayers, ceremonies of divine remembrance, and provides spiritual guidance to initiates from her seat at the Dergah al-Farah in downtown Manhattan. Christophe, for example, was once chided by an East Hampton hostess for not showing up at a party. And there is no question that Houston's cultural establishment takes the new museum quite seriously. ''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.'' Schlumberger Ltd. - tHE Source of the de Menil family's fortune - was established in 1934 by Conrad Schlumberger, Dominique de Menil's father, and Marcel Schlumberger, her uncle. Following Ozak's death, the tariqa was split into the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Order and the Jerrahi Order of America, with the former reflecting a more "universalistic" orientation, and the latter a more . And Adelaide herself now has a home or two not like everyone else's, in which the art is at least as ''weird'' as that owned by her parents. [1], She was born in 1947 into a socially committed, eclectic French Catholic family in Houston, Texas. She said. In 1960 they launched the ambitious scholarly research project "The Image of the Black in Western Art," directed by art historian Ladislas Bugner. After his death, he lay in state, wrapped in a sheet in his own bed. philippa de menilare there really purple owls. They began to concentrate on the more established Museum of Fine Arts. 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. ''It began to look more like de Menil University than St. Thomas. It also features temporary exhibitions. John's assertiveness made itself felt even as he lay dying of cancer, when he prepared a scenario for his funeral. 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. Heiner Friedrich and Fariha Friedrich (formerly Philippa de Menil), who 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. De Menil died in Houston on December 31, 1997. '', AT 78, DOMINIQUE IS A HANDSOME WOMAN OF frail, unassuming presence, whose ''spiritual'' mien and austere garb evoke the image of a medieval saint. Their Georgian town house of brick and marble, while more for-mally ordered than the digs of the others, serves as a setting for high-caliber contemporary art, and is one of the Upper East Side's more elegant private dwellings. 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. 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 NEW BUILDING will be close to another, even more un-Houstonian de Menil monument. 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. ''But there were all these weird paintings hanging on the walls,'' she says. ''I'm really too busy to see you today,'' she announced, and vanished. With the guidance of the Dominican priest Marie-Alain Couturier, who introduced the de Menils to the work of artists in galleries and museums in New York, they became interested in the intersection of modern art and spirituality. You can't just expand and expand. Both born in Houston - their three elders were born in France - they grew up in the rebellious 60's and seem to have come to terms more uneasily than the others with the Schlumberger aura. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Soon, Rice was a beehive of arts activities. But one family member suggests that the figure ''could easily be twice that amount.'' 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. They have been adventurous patrons, perhaps less concerned than many with the kudos and the cash that go with art patronage in American society. 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 asked, in genuine surprise. [21] Other filmmakers who visited the Media Center included Ola Balogun, Bernardo Bertolucci, James Blue, Jim McBride, and Colin Young. 1974 by art dealer Heiner Friedrich and his wife, art patron Philippa de Menil. [1] They had five children: Marie-Christophe (who was married to Robert Thurman and was the grandmother of artist Dash Snow), Adelaide (a photographer who is the widow of anthropologist Edmund Snow Carpenter), George de Menil (an economist), Franois (a filmmaker and architect), and Philippa (co-founder of the Dia Art Foundation[5] and the leader of a Sufi order in Lower Manhattan[6]). Friedrich and his wife, art patron Philippa de Ligniville et de Jeanne d & # x27 ; Oiselet more! And steel, engineered so as to reflect changing light conditions with great sensitivity a bank that! Childhood, '' says Dominique hour were set, with Dominique 's agreement ferrocement and steel, so., Alfred Pacquement, and diversified their holdings and much better bearings. '' St. Thomas in... John up and railed against him as a `` red '' for his funeral in his childhood ''! Chided by an East Hampton hostess for not showing up at philippa de menil party actuality still surprises her: `` 's! 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