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Double Vision: The Unerring Eye of Art World Avatars Dominique and John de Menil, by William Middleton
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“In this scrupulously detailed and admiring biography, William Middleton chronicles the achievements of this couple whose mission in life was to share their passion for art…Wonderfully illustrated.” —Meryle Secrest, The Wall Street Journal “In this fastidiously researched double biography…Middleton traces the couple’s inimitable aesthetic vision back to their eighteenth-century Enlightenment and industrialist ancestors…this authoritative biography correctly argues for the crucial role that patrons continue to play in shaping the art world and relays and supports the Menils’ inspiring belief in the necessity of art for the common good.” —Booklist “An authoritative account of the lives and patronage of 20th-century art-world power-couple Dominique and John de Menil…As Middleton dutifully shows, the couple’s commitment to art and philanthropy defined their lives…. This exhaustively researched, satisfying slab of a book offers a thorough look into the lives and influence of an extraordinary couple.”—Publishers Weekly“Middleton spares no details in this history of the French couple who made Houston their home and converted it to a center of the arts… A well-written, highly informative book for devotees of the modern art world.”—Kirkus Reviews“In Double Vision, William Middleton gives visionary art collectors Dominique and John de Menil the joint biography they richly deserve—a sweeping, superbly researched, behind-the-scenes account of a family deeply involved in the story of 20th-century American art.”—Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan, authors of de Kooning: An American Master“I thought nothing could equal visiting the Menil Collection and the legendary Dominique and John de Menil’s house and other properties in Houston, but William Middleton’s brilliant evocation of a different time and formidable ethos, is so extraordinary an achievement that the famous couple not only live again, but so do their dazzling accomplishments. A glorious book.” —Hilton Als, author of Alice Neel: Uptown “There cannot be a better moment for us to be reminded of the principled, visionary art patronage and extraordinary contribution to the cultural legacy of the 20th century made by Dominique and John de Menil. With exquisite sensitivity to atmosphere and detail, William Middleton’s dual biography is resoundingly alive. It’s a story for the ages—good for the soul.” —Tilda Swinton
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About the Author
WILLIAM MIDDLETON is a journalist and editor who has worked in New York and Paris. He has been the Fashion Features Director for Harper's Bazaar and the Paris Bureau Chief for Fairchild Publications, overseeing W Magazine and Women's Wear Daily. He has written for The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Vogue, House & Garden, Esquire, Texas Monthly, Travel & Leisure, Departures, and the International Herald Tribune.
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Product details
Hardcover: 784 pages
Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (March 27, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0375415432
ISBN-13: 978-0375415432
Product Dimensions:
6.6 x 1.6 x 9.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.3 out of 5 stars
10 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#211,884 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
You can’t say enough about Dominique de Menil. She transformed everything she touched and made it greater than it was before. She was the best thing that ever happened to John de Menil. She was the best thing that ever happened to Houston, Texas. And she was probably the best thing that happened to art and spirituality in the 20th Century. And aside from all of that, she was a really lovely person with a great sense of humor who was a lot of fun to be around.
I want to salute the incredible accomplishment that is this book. Through painstaking research William Middleton has captured two of the most remarkable, accomplished and unique characters I have encountered. Jean and Dominique DeMenil were not only important philanthropists who helped build Houston and change the world, they were innovators and an inspiration to all those who aspire to lives well lived nourished by ideas, culture and humane values. This is not just another book on the Dynasty set; it is a moving and stunningly researched piece of biography that ranges from fascinating French history to art, architecture and more. Yet finally it is a love story. William Middleton has shown us so many beautiful things. Heartily recommend.
Jean and Dominique de Menil give new meaning to art lovers. This magnificent couple wound their way from France, and we’re talking deep roots, both families who went back centuries, all the way to Houston, developed a deep love for modern art, not just as collectors but true patrons, which evolved into so much more. Their love for each other, their adopted city, their history, their spirituality, their family business (Schlumberger, we’re talking oil), which Jean (who later changed his name to John) became an integral part of, their extreme wealth and how they used it to benefit others, their interests beyond the arts, their lifelong relationships with artists, dealers, museum directors, and important leaders, is described at length in William Middleton’s biography DOUBLE VISION.This book is chock full of history spanning the globe. Beginning with how Dominique Schlumberger met Jean de Menil at a party at Versailles. The stuff of fairy tales. Their art collection began with a Cezanne watercolor that Jean purchased on a business trip to New York for the shocking price of $300.Once the couple discovered their love of art, shortly after World War II, after they fled France for the US, with a few years in Caracas, which developed as they were educated by a Dominican priest, they went all in. Wherever their travels took them, and they took them all over, they would meet an artist, usually undiscovered, and purchase paintings, sketches, photography, sculptures, and more, for, at the time, at minimal cost, and showcase them at their homes around the world – their family estate outside of Paris, pied-à -terre in Paris, townhouse in Manhattan, and house in Venezuela while Jean was establishing the Schlumberger business in South America, and then their temporary home in Houston, soon to become their Philip Johnson-designed and permanent home. Not only is this house a stand-out structure that showcases their art and you can only imagine how the folks in Houston first responded to it at the time it was built, but you can also imagine the original shock that Mr. Johnson felt when Charles James, yes the dress designer, whom the de Menils chose to design the interior, which made poor Mr. Johnson almost turn the job down. It is a contrast that only these two could pull off. At one point, their collection consisted of 10,000 works of art, relationships with the likes of Rothko, Picasso, Ernst, Rauschenberg, Magritte, deKooning, Warhol, and many, many more.Not only did the de Menils establish an art history program at a local university, which was later moved to Rice University, they funded the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, was involved with the Pompidou Center in Paris, eventually the Rothko Chapel and its supporting programs, which brought leading religious leaders and programs to Houston, a prominent statue dedicated to Martin Luther King, Jr., which led to their lifetime support of the civil rights movement and arts programs and exhibitions that were the first of their kind in museums. It was The Image of the Black in Western Art archive in 1960 at Rice University that garnered national attention and was probably the de Menil’s most ambitious effort and showcased the couple’s dedication to civil rights as well. Eventually, the de Menils, after Jean’s death, brought their vast collection to a museum, a dream come true, designed by Renzo Piano, which is their gift to the public.I am so taken with this book but most of all absolutely astounded with what this couple did for the artists they met and came to know, their appreciation for art, their open and generous hearts, and how they came to create one of the most significant collections, which is now available for all to see, and for free. The book does such a wonderful job telling their story, the only thing missing is that I must go to Houston to visit the Menil Collection (they dropped the ‘de’) museum. It is currently closed for renovation through the end of the summer. In the meantime, I will be doing everything I can to learn more about their art collection. I just ordered this lovely book, A MODERN PATRONAGE: DE MENIL GIFTS TO AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN MUSEUMS.
Excellent book. Very detailed biography of a successful couple that span a long period of time and is rich of international travels, art and business with a very interesting view of Texas and Houston at the beginning of the oil boom.
Congratulations to the author, and also to any reader inclined towards brilliantly researched biographies about admirable people of vision, culture, taste and last, but not least, faith. A beautiful, transporting reading experience from which I felt I emerged better informed and certainly inspired.
BIOGRAPHY/ARTWilliam MiddletonDouble Vision: The Unerring Eye of Art World Avatars Dominique and John de MenilAlfred A. KnopfHardcover, 978-0-3754-1543-2, (also available as an e-book), 784 pgs., $40.00March 27, 2018“I’m after the excitement not the object per se—after the light, not the bulbs. I’d like to provide for people plenty of bulbs to switch on.†—Dominique de MenilY’all know that old question asking who you’d invite to your dinner party if you could invite anyone you wanted? I’d invite Dominique and John de Menil.Born in France at the beginning of the twentieth century, they came to Houston, Texas, in the early 1940s with the family oilfield services multinational that would become Schlumberger Limited. John de Menil was a baron; Dominique the heir to Schlumberger, descended from a distinguished line of French intellectuals, important to the governments of kings and emperors. Over the decades, the de Menils built the Menil Collection, the Rothko Chapel, the Byzantine Fresco Chapel, and the Cy Twombly Gallery, and underwrote the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Their personal collection exceeded 20,000 works of art, including paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures, rare books, and decorative objects. They were not only the vanguard of art collectors and advocates, but thought leaders in civil rights, human rights, and ecumenicism, often still a dicey proposition, not to say dangerous, in Texas.How in heck did these two wash up in Houston, you ask? It’s a fascinating story well told. Dominique and John de Menil come alive again in these pages.Double Vision: The Unerring Eye of Art World Avatars Dominique and John de Menil is the new biography of the first family of Houston’s arts community by William Middleton. Middleton, a journalist and editor who has worked with Harper’s Bazaar, the New York Times, and Texas Monthly, among other outlets, has written an encyclopedic yet profoundly personal account of not only the extraordinary lives of Dominique and John de Menil, but a history of the flowering of modern art in the United States post–World War II.Middleton begins in the New World, with the opening in 1987 of the Menil Collection. Part Two takes a deep dive into the Old World, Normandy in the eighteenth century, leisurely making his way back to Houston and the death of Dominique de Menil in 1999. Along the way we get an education—European history, American history, art history, and how to view art with a good eye and proper attitude, tracing their developing aesthetic from Alsace to Paris, then New York to Houston. Obviously a labor of love, Middleton’s book doesn’t shy from more difficult aspects of the de Menils, notably the controversy involving art thieves, cultural appropriation, and those Cypriot Byzantine frescoes. While it’s dense with minute detail and overly long—I suggest sitting with your knees drawn up so as to prop up the book and rest your wrists—it’s impossible to overstate the importance of Middleton’s superb work.Middleton conducted ten years of research and writing in Paris, New York, and Houston. He had the cooperation of the five de Menil children, as well as extended family, friends, artists, and colleagues. He was granted interviews, provided with candid family photographs, and given use of the family archives. Double Vision is an intimate work that includes not only sixteen pages of photographs, but also 135 illustrations throughout the text, representing an impressive feat of curation itself.Dominique and John de Menil are household names in Houston, and now, thanks to this supreme effort of research — indeed, immersion —the rest of Texas, and the world, will understand why the de Menils are considered “the Medici of modern art.â€â€[Great artists] can be difficult, dissolute, but they are never base and in their quest for perfection they come closer to eternal truths than pious goody-goodies. So we are collectors without remorse.†—John de MenilOriginally published in Lone Star Literary Life.
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