Letter from the Director
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We are pleased to share this annual report highlighting the notable events that took place across the Menil Collection’s neighborhood of art during Fiscal Year 2020 (July 1, 2019–June 30, 2020).
2020 Annual Report
The Menil Collection
Photo: Daniel Ortiz
With the refurbishment of the main museum building and the inauguration of the Menil Drawing Institute accomplished in Fiscal Year 2019, the Menil Collection devoted much of Fiscal Year 2020 (July 1, 2019–June 30, 2020) to showcasing these beautiful spaces, expanding programming, and improving visitor experience. In September 2019, the Menil presented Mapa Wiya (Your Map’s Not Needed): Australian Aboriginal Art from the Fondation Opale, Houston’s first major exhibition of indigenous art from the continent. We are grateful to Bérengère Primat, the founder of the Fondation Opale in Lens, Switzerland, for sharing artwork from her exemplary collection with our visitors and to the Australian artists and cultural leaders who joined us for this special presentation. Meanwhile, the Menil Drawing Institute partnered with the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Morgan Library & Museum, New York, on a display of drawings by the little-known eighteenth- century architect Jean-Jacques Lequeu. His artwork had last been exhibited in Houston more than fifty years earlier, when Dominique de Menil brought a show titled Visionary Architects: Boullée, Ledoux, Lequeu to the United States. Several of the drawings from the 1967 exhibition were included in our 2019–20 presentation of Jean-Jacques Lequeu: Visionary Architect, Drawings from the Bibliothèque nationale de France providing new generations with the opportunity to discover the wildly imaginative work of one of France’s most inventive draftsmen. Visionaries themselves, John and Dominique de Menil were deeply interested in the artists of their time. They were early champions of Brice Marden, who returned to Houston for the February 2020 opening of his exhibition at the Drawing Institute. Think of Them as Spaces: Brice Marden’s Drawings included six bodies of work spanning 1975 to 2019 that highlighted the central role that drawing has played throughout his oeuvre. The majority of the artwork on view was loaned directly from the artist and had never before been publicly displayed. In this report, you will find more information about these and other exhibitions as well as scholarship and programming highlights. The Menil continues to prioritize the five pillars of our 2018 strategic plan: art and archives, visitor experience, stewardship of the museum campus and neighborhood, financial growth and resilience, and organizational success. One of our ongoing goals is to conduct more research on the artwork in the permanent collection. Two publications from the
