Collections - Twentieth-Century

The collection of twentieth-century art focuses on European modernism, Surrealism, and American postwar art. Primarily due to the influence of Father Marie-Alain Couturier, a key figure in the great mid-century commissions of modern art by the Catholic Church, the collection is centered within the School of Paris. By 1945, Father Couturier had introduced the de Menils to the art of Georges Braque, Paul Cézanne, Fernand Léger, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso, all of which they enthusiastically bought. Attesting to their personal manner of collecting is the concentration in Cubism and Neo-Plasticism, while German Expressionism is entirely absent.

Alexandre Iolas, a Surrealist art dealer in New York, simultaneously cultivated the de Menils’ interest in Surrealism. The most comprehensive within the museum, the Surrealism collection covers Magical Realism, automatism, and the depiction of seemingly opposite subjects. Continuously exhibited is the world-renowned art of Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Man Ray, Matta, Joan Miró, Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso, and Yves Tanguy. Rare Surrealist publications by André Breton, Paul Eduard, and Julien Levy are also part of the collection.

Highlights include “Surrealism & Witnesses,” a changing installation of approximately 200 objects from both the Menil and private collections. A kind of Wunderkammer [room of wonders], it features both authentic and fabricated curiosities that once captivated the Surrealist artists. Within the haunting room, viewers “witness” the indigenous functions of the objects. Also installed are rare documentary photographs of the artists and their mysterious drawings.

American art from mid century forward had become a major focus by the 1960s. Notable is the commitment made to the art of Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko. These artists’ fascinating innovations in abstraction, along with those of Jackson Pollock and Clyfford Still, challenged the form and style of the de Menils’ first acquisitions of European modernism. Artists from the second generation of the New York School also form a major presence. Collected in depth is the work of Joseph Cornell, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, and Andy Warhol. Also acquired was the work of Jasper Johns, whose painting Voice, 1964–67, was John de Menil’s last acquisition before his untimely death in 1973.