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Double vision : the unerring eye of art world avatars Dominique and John de Menil / William Middleton.

by Middleton, William, 1961- author.

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New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2018.

Menil, John de.

Menil, Dominique de.

Art -- Collectors and collecting -- United States -- Biography.

Civil rights workers -- United States -- Biography.

Philanthropists -- United States -- Biography.

9780375415432 (hardcover)

0375415432 (hardcover)

xiii, 760 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 25 cm

Part one. The museum imagined -- Fanfare -- Part two. The old world -- A family château -- A protestant dynasty -- Return to France -- Foreign affairs -- Honor and sacrifice -- Monsieur le Baron -- At first sight -- Une jeunesse -- Horizons broadened -- A shared life -- Engaged -- Part three. War -- Drôle de guerre -- The debacle -- Landings -- Postwar -- Part four. New frontiers -- Home -- Nail hit this time -- The sky is the limit -- A big splash -- Worth the candle -- Nothing and everything -- Faith can be alive -- Part five. A very strong woman -- Aftermath -- What now? -- Other voices, other lands -- Toward a new museum -- Global visions -- A museum with walls -- From civil rights to human rights -- Byzantium -- A new generation -- Un acte final.

"Dominique and John de Menil created an oasis of culture in their Philip Johnson-designed house with everyone from Marlene Dietrich and René Magritte to Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns. In Houston, they built the Menil Collection, the Rothko Chapel, the Byzantine Fresco Chapel, the Cy Twombly Gallery, and underwrote the Contemporary Arts Museum. Now, with unprecedented access to family archives, William Middleton has written a sweeping biography of this unique couple. From their ancestors in Normandy and Alsace, to their own early years in France, and their travels in South America before settling in Houston. We see them introduced to the artists in Europe and America whose works they would collect, and we see how, by the 1960s, their collection had grown to include 17,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs, rare books, and decorative objects. And here is, as well, a vivid behind-the-scenes look at the art world of the twentieth century and the enormous influence the de Menils wielded through what they collected and built and through the causes they believed in."--Amazon

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