Houston’s oil barons have long invested in the arts, both for the city and for themselves. The crown jewel of a wildly eclectic museum scene is the Menil Collection, the 17,000-piece collection of Schlumberger USA president John de Menil and his wife, Dominique, who ran the museum and the Menil Foundation until her death in 1997.
The museum’s major 2017 winter exhibition is The Fabiola Project, consisting of 450-plus- reproductions of a lost 4th-century painting of Roman Saint Fabiola by French artist Jean-Jacques Henner. The images were collected by Belgian artist Francis Alÿs in the flea markets of Mexico City, where he began living in the early 1990s, and augmented by art-minded friends who picked up other pieces for his collection as they traveled the world. Alÿs will be on hand to discuss the collection on May 21.
ART FOR ALL Making art accessible is vital to the Menil’s mission, so no admission is charged and all public programs are free. All of the Menil campus buildings are entered at ground level, symbolic of its democratic ideals.
But the intriguing Fabiola Project is hardly the only attraction at this family-friendly museum this winter. The Menil regularly exhibits works from its collection by important Surrealists such as Rene Magritte, André Breton, and Max Ernst as well as works by Picasso and Warhol, while a separate exhibition features ancient art and antiquities that inspired the Surrealists. Several of the museum’s immaculate spaces are given over to primitive art and sculpture, and the museum also shows a significant number of Neo-Dadaist works by Jasper Johns and Port Arthur native Robert Rauschenberg. Adjacent to the museum is the world-renowned Rothko Chapel, a non-denominational meditative space filled with artist Mark Rothko’s works. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2000, the building has been described by chapel historian Susan Barnes as “the world’s first ecumenical center, a holy place open to all religions and belonging to none.” The Cy Twombly Pavilion lies directly across from the Menil and features 30 of Twombly’s works.
