John de Menil

The title of Baron, which de Ménil inherited from his father, had been bestowed on John's great-great-grandfather Paul-Alexis-Joseph Menu de Ménil (July 17, 1764 – December 30, 1834) on September 11, 1813 by Napoleon Bonaparte – thus making him a 'baron de l'empire'.

De Ménil was a son of Baron Georges-Auguste-Emmanuel Menu de Ménil (April 20, 1863 – 1947) and Marie-Madeleine Rougier (1866 – 1929).

The Menu de Ménil family was a French Catholic family, many of whose men had been officers in the French military.

John de Ménil (January 4, 1904 – June 1, 1973) was a Franco-American businessman, philanthropist, and art patron.

He was the founding president of the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR) in New York.

In the 1920s de Ménil earned a degree in political science from Sciences Po (Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris) and a degree in law from the Faculté de droit de l'Université de Paris.

In 1930, de Ménil met French heiress Dominique Schlumberger, whom he married on May 9, 1931.

They had five children.

Although the full surname of these children actually is 'Menu de Ménil', in practice they all use the shortened anglicized spelling 'de Ménil' (or sometimes 'Deménil') instead, so that is what is given here:

In the early years of his marriage de Ménil was a banker, serving as vice-president (1932–1938) of the Banque Nationale pour le Commerce et l'Industrie in Paris.

Following the outbreak of World War II and the Nazi occupation of France, the de Ménils emigrated from Paris to the United States.

They maintained residences in New York City and France but settled in Houston, Texas, where de Ménil 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.

(1) Christophe (Marie Christophe de Ménil) (born 1933) – The first wife of Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman (they married in 1960), and the grandmother of artist Dash Snow.

(2) Adelaide (Louise Adélaïde de Ménil) (born 1935) – A photographer who was the third wife of anthropologist Edmund Snow Carpenter.

Her second husband (whom she married in 1978) was visionary German art dealer Heiner Friedrich (born April 14, 1938).

(3) Georges (Georges François Conrad de Ménil) (aka George de Menil) (born December 4, 1940) – An economist who is married to historian Lois Ames Pattison (born May 15, 1938).

John and Dominique de Ménil began collecting art intensively in the 1940s, beginning with a purchase of Paul Cézanne's 1895 painting Montagne (Mountain) in 1945.

The de Ménils' Catholic faith, especially their interest in Father Yves Marie Joseph Congar's teachings on ecumenism, would become crucial in the development of their collecting ethos in the coming decades.

With the guidance of the Dominican priest Marie-Alain Couturier, who introduced the de Ménils to the work of artists in galleries and museums in New York, they became interested in the intersection of modern art and spirituality.

They ultimately amassed more than 17,000 paintings, sculptures, decorative objects, prints, drawings, photographs, and rare books.

The de Ménils 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.

(4) François (François Conrad Thomas de Ménil) (born April 12, 1945) – A filmmaker and architect.

(5) Philippa (Anne Caroline Philippa de Ménil) (born June 13, 1947) – A co-founder of the Dia Art Foundation.

He married Susan Kadin Silver (born May 8, 1958) on January 18, 1985 in Harris County, Texas.

By the 1960s the de Menils had gravitated toward the major American post-war movements of Abstract expressionism, Pop art, and Minimalism.

Over the years the family enjoyed close personal friendships with many of the artists whose work they collected, including Victor Brauner, Max Ernst, Jasper Johns, Yves Klein, René Magritte, Robert Rauschenberg, Dorothea Tanning, and Andy Warhol.

The de Ménils, however, did not limit their acquisitions to modern art, and their eclectic tastes became a hallmark of their collecting practices.

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.

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.

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.

After becoming a U. S. citizen in 1962, de Ménil officially changed his first name from 'Jean' to 'John'.

Georges and Lois were married on August 3, 1968.

Her first husband (whom she married on May 14, 1969, in Harris County, Texas) was Italian anthropologist Francesco Pellizzi (born July 14, 1940).

Plans to create a museum to house and exhibit the collection began as early as 1972, when the de Menils 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.

Kahn did produce some preliminary drawings, but the project was suspended in 1973 after de Menil's and Kahn's deaths less than a year apart.

With his wife, Dominique de Menil, he established the Menil Collection, a free museum designed by Renzo Piano and built in 1986 to preserve and exhibit their world-class contemporary art collection.

De Ménil was born Baron Jean Marie Joseph Menu de Ménil in Paris.

After emigrating to the United States during World War II, he began using the name 'John Menu de Ménil' which is an anglicized version of 'Jean Menu de Ménil'.

Over time he stopped using the 'Menu' portion of his surname and began using shortened forms of the surname such as 'de Ménil' or 'Deménil'.

John's children also usually spell their surname as 'de Ménil' (sometimes they use the form 'Deménil').