The Menil Collection FY24 Annual Report by The Menil Collection

The Menil Collection Annual Report

Letter from the Director

We are pleased to share this annual report highlighting notable events that took place across the Menil Collection’s neighborhood of art during Fiscal Year 2024 (July 1, 2023–June 30, 2024).

In Fiscal Year 2024, the Menil Collection opened ten exhibitions and installations curated or co-curated by Menil staff, reflecting a diversity of voices and points of view. Additionally, reinstallations took place in the Menil’s Arts of Africa galleries, Byzantine icon room, Surrealism galleries, and Arts of the Ancient World galleries.

Chryssa & New York, Hanne Darboven—Writing Time, and Ruth Asawa Through Line celebrated innovative 20th century work created by three noteworthy women artists. The exhibitions were accompanied by artist talks, musical performances, and film screenings. Chryssa & New York and Ruth Asawa Through Line were nationally acclaimed, with glowing press coverage in a wide range of outlets, including Artforum, The Art Newspaper, The Brooklyn Rail, Forbes, Hyperallergic, The National Herald, and The New York Times. These shows, along with Hanne Darboven—Writing Time, were each accompanied by scholarly catalogues published or co-published by the Menil, with the Darboven catalogue receiving a prestigious “50 Books/50 Covers” award from the American Institute of Graphic Arts, a professional society for design.

The Menil has a long history of engaging with contemporary artists. Swiss artist Marc Bauer returned to Houston twice to modify his Menil Drawing Institute wall drawing, an evolving and compelling narrative that addressed issues of climate change, migration, and marginalized communities. The Iconic Portrait Strand by Nestor Topchy, the first museum show ever devoted to the work of the Houston-based artist, was celebrated with a public opening that filled the building. Topchy’s community-based approach and enthusiasm for his chosen vocation was on full view, not only in his exhibition but also in his temporary open studio on the Menil’s campus, and during the Pysanky Ukrainian Easter Egg workshop he hosted for the museum’s annual Neighborhood Community Day.

During Fiscal Year 2024, the Menil also made many important acquisitions. Alice Neel’s expressionistic portrait of artist Faith Ringgold was the centerpiece of a pocket gallery installation, while works from Sam Gilliam’s Jail Jungle series and Terry Winters’s Cobalt were among a number of newly accessioned works displayed in the exhibition Abstraction after Modernism: Recent Acquisitions. For this presentation the Menil invited artists Leslie Hewitt and Richard Tuttle to install entire galleries devoted to their work. Throughout the year, artists Marc Bauer, Robert Gober, Nancy Grossman, Michelle Stuart, Nestor Topchy, and Nari Ward participated in talks to discuss their art and creative processes with staff and the public.

The museum hosted several large conferences and study days. In November 2023, the Menil partnered with other Houston-area museums to host the fifth annual International Society of Surrealism (ISSS) Conference, and also welcomed the Western Association of Art Conservation. In June 2024, a grant from the Getty’s Paper Project initiative made possible an intensive weeklong international workshop devoted to the materiality of unique works on paper. More information can be found on page 31.

Major capital projects in Fiscal Year 2024 included the installation of illuminated wayfinding signage throughout the campus and work on the renovation of the Fresco Building and Menil House grounds. The latter project consists of essential upgrades to improve security and safety, and make the property adaptable to future climate challenges. A few weeks before the fiscal year ended, a derecho adversely impacted much of Houston. It, along with Hurricane Beryl, which followed later that summer, underscored the importance of our ongoing attention to storm preparation, from allocating extra resources for annual tree maintenance to updating our Emergency Response Procedures manual after every major incident. We continue to seriously consider and plan for the future impact of climate change on the museum’s collection, buildings, and grounds.

I look back on the achievements of the past year with the utmost pride and appreciation for the continued dedication and support of our staff, members, patrons, sponsors, and Board of Trustees, led by President Doug Lawing, Chair Janet Hobby, and Chair Emerita Louisa Stude Sarofim.

Sincerely,

Rebecca Rabinow

Daniel Zilkha; Michael Zilkha; Rebecca Rabinow; Janie Zilkha. Photo: Jenny Antill

The Menil Collection is committed to its founders’ belief that art is essential to the human experience. Set in a residential Houston neighborhood, the Menil fosters direct, personal encounters with works of art and welcomes all visitors free of charge to its museum buildings and surrounding green spaces.

Values Statement

Diversity and Inclusion Statement

The Menil’s institutional culture and actions are guided by the following core values:

Inclusivity We are committed to being equitable, inclusive, and welcoming to all people.

Integrity We strive toward transparency and accountability, and we actively work to combat bias and racism in all of our practices, interactions, and activities.

Empathy We are a small staff who work closely together. We listen to different points of view and are committed to acting with kindness, respect, and understanding toward one another.

Excellence We uphold the highest professional standards. We consistently strive to innovate those standards and exceed expectations.

Intellectual Curiosity Guided by our founders’ vision, we are committed to being socially and culturally aware, to pursuing new and challenging ideas, and to advancing new scholarship and new perspectives.

Community We aim to contribute to the cultural vibrancy of our diverse community by being a site for learning, sharing, and the free exchange of ideas. We are a thoughtful and active member of the Montrose and greater Houston community; we are a good neighbor and responsible partner.

Firm in the belief that art is essential to the human experience, the Menil Collection remains free to all, always. From their philanthropic vision to their work with artists, our founders sought to combat prejudice and champion social justice. This legacy lives on in our work and mission, to which diversity, inclusion, and equitable representation are fundamental.

True commitment to diversity and inclusion is an active process; we are dedicated to the work of listening, learning, and taking action that this ongoing commitment necessitates. It is our responsibility to reflect the diversity of our community, from our galleries and programming to our offices and green spaces. At the Menil, you are included, welcomed, and needed.

Board of Trustees

Louisa Stude Sarofim, Chair Emerita

Janet M. Hobby, Chair

Doug Lawing, President

Caroline Huber, Vice President

James W. Stewart, Jr., Treasurer

Michael Zilkha, Secretary

Nancy Abendshein

Eddie R. Allen III

Suzanne Deal Booth

Clare T. Casademont

Hilda Curran

David Fitch

Aziz Friedrich

Menil Council

Henrietta K. Alexander

Chinhui Juhn Allen

Kristen Berger

Sara Cain

Michael D. Cannon

Stephanie Cockrell

Caroline Finkelstein

I.H. Kempner III

Alison Leland

Marley Lott

Ransom Lummis

Poppi Massey

Nancy M. Manne

Catherine Masterson

David C. Moriniere

Cullen K. Muse

Carol Neuberger

Founding Benefactors

Sylvie and Eric Boissonnas

The Brown Foundation, Inc.

Edmund and Adelaide de Menil Carpenter

The Cullen Foundation

Margaret W. and J. A. Elkins, Jr.

The Charles Englehard Foundation

Fariha and Heiner Friedrich

Hobby Foundation

Houston Endowment Inc.

Caroline Weiss Law

Elizabeth Glassman

Barbara Goot-Gamson

Cecily Horton

Caroline Huber

George Kelly

Dillon Kyle

Janie C. Lee*

Isabel Lummis

Francois de Menil

Clémence Molin

Franci Neely

Anaeze Offodile

Marilyn Oshman*

William E. Pritchard III

David Ruiz

Leslie Elkins Sasser

Anne Schlumberger

Miles Glaser (1925–2004), Trustee Emeritus

Judy Nyquist

Francesco Pellizzi*

Jessica Phifer

Harry C. Pinson

Mary Hammon Quinn

Victoria Salem

Paul Seifert

Kelly R. Silvers

Reggie R. Smith

Aliyya Stude

Patrick G. Wade

Mark Wawro

Morris A. Weiner

Lea Weingarten

William H. White

Barry Young

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Dominique de Menil

Susan and Francois de Menil

Annalee G. Newman

Susan E. and Roy S. O’Connor

Fayez Sarofim & Co.

Louisa Stude Sarofim

Scaler Foundation, Inc.

Annette Schlumberger

The Wortham Foundation

The Iconic Portrait Strand by Nestor Topchy

August 4, 2023–January 21, 2024

The Iconic Portrait Strand by Nestor Topchy presented more than one hundred portraits painted by Houston-based artist Nestor Topchy (b. 1963), who has worked in Texas for more than thirty years.

The small paintings, with their gold backgrounds, resemble Byzantine icons; however, rather than representing religious figures, Topchy depicts friends and colleagues in the art community. He considers these contemporary portraits a corpus—a single and ongoing work of art that functions like a growing strand of “social and cultural DNA.”

Topchy’s materials are traditional. He applies red clay, powdered marble, gold leaf, and egg tempera to small wooden panels. The artist has explained that his approach connects the past to the present, lending a unique effect to his contemporary subjects: “To paint a mortal in the sea of gold light, alone, is to propose a saintliness that dwells within all people.”

The artist’s work has connections to the Menil Collection’s important holdings of religious icons, which span fourteen centuries and include significant examples of devotional objects from the Byzantine Empire and Christian Orthodox traditions.

The exhibition was celebrated with a well-attended public opening and an Artist Talk. During the run of the show, visitors were invited to witness Topchy’s creative process in a studio on the Menil’s campus. The artist also offered to hold portrait sittings for Menil staff and visitors as part of his ongoing series of iconic portraits of the community.

An American-Ukrainian artist, Topchy was born and raised in New Jersey. He received his bachelor’s degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and his master of fine arts degree from the University of Houston. Deeply influenced by Ukrainian folk art, Zen philosophy, the Dada art movement, and the work of Yves Klein, he is known for his use of diverse media and attention to craft.

The Iconic Portrait Strand by Nestor Topchy was curated by Michelle White, Senior Curator, The Menil Collection.

Wall Drawing Series: Marc Bauer

September 22, 2023–August 18, 2024

Swiss artist Marc Bauer (b. 1975) was commissioned to create the fifth installment of the Menil Drawing Institute’s ephemeral Wall Drawing Series. The thirty-six-foot-wide charcoal and pastel mural, titled RESILIENCE, Drawing the Line, 2023, combined well-known imagery from art history with contemporary references to create a thought-provoking narrative. Unlike previous artist drawings in the series, the work continued to evolve over its yearlong display, with Bauer returning to Houston twice in 2024 to alter his composition.

Fascinated by how images circulate through society, Bauer used sources ranging from family albums to cable news streams, which he reconfigured to shape a prismatic view of history, culture, and politics. He likens this process to a kind of witnessing, a deliberate and deeply personal way of seeing and understanding the world. For RESILIENCE, Drawing the Line, the artist juxtaposed images of man-made disasters and patriarchal violence alongside depictions of resistance, aid, and affection. Bauer’s images evoked political battles over climate justice, humane migration policy, and the rights of marginalized communities. Speaking about the work, Bauer said, “I see the drawing as a meeting point between the viewer and myself; the drawing is there to activate memories in the viewer’s mind, like a trigger. It’s the viewer who fills in the gaps in the narrative, who reconstruct the story; I only give a few elements.”

The colorful, exuberant third version of the drawing, completed in April 2024, was like a palimpsest with traces of all changes made on its surface. The themes of resilience and resistance represented in the initial two iterations were augmented with images depicting utopia. Bauer’s incorporation of vibrant mandala-inspired, floral shapes framing the faces of figures created in the initial drawing signified the achievement of a spiritual paradise.

“The addition of these abstract and dynamic shapes on top of heavier, traumatic images, shifts the narrative to bring the original visuals back to the conversation,” Bauer said. “It reveals the healing process through which the figures go to reach utopia.”

In conjunction with Bauer’s wall drawing, the Menil Drawing Institute hosted an Artist Talk and an outdoor community dance party celebrating the work and Queer histories.

Wall Drawing Series: Marc Bauer was curated by Kelly Montana, Assistant Curator, Menil Drawing Institute.

This wall drawing was generously supported by John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation; Cindy and David Fitch; Caroline Huber; Dillon Kyle and Sam Lasseter; Scott and Judy Nyquist; Leslie and Shannon Sasser; Elizabeth and Barry Young/UBS Private Wealth; and Nina and Michael Zilkha.

This exhibition was generously supported by Dillon Kyle and Sam Lasseter; Mary Hale Lovett McLean; Veronica and Douglas Overman; Beverly and Howard Robinson; John and Stephanie Smither Visionary Art Fund; Scott R. Sparvero; Friends of the Artist; and the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.

Iconic Portrait Strand (Terrell James) 2008–23; Egg tempera and gold leaf on gesso over cloth on plywood. Courtesy of the artist. © Nestor Topchy. Photo: Caroline Philippone

Detail view of RESILIENCE, Drawing the Line, 2023, by Marc Bauer at the Menil Drawing Institute, Houston. Photo: Paul Hester

September 29, 2023–March 10, 2024

Chryssa & New York, co-organized by the Menil Collection and Dia Art Foundation, New York, was the first major survey of the work of Greekborn artist Chryssa (1933–2013) in the United States in more than fifty years. Focused on the innovative art she made while living in New York City from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, the exhibition brought together works from nearly a dozen museum collections and highlighted Chryssa’s prescient use of neon and industrial processes in sculpture.

Responding to her urban environment, Chryssa was particularly interested in the intersection of art and everyday life. Her critical interest in post–World War II America was exemplified by works such as The Gates to Times Square, 1964–66, which is considered Chryssa’s magnum opus. Restored for this show, the towering interplay of neon, plexiglass, and metal pays homage to the signage and dazzling lights of New York’s most famous intersection. The presentation, which included large-scale and text-based paintings such as Times Square Sky, 1962, and sculptural works that, influenced by ancient Mediterranean art, harness natural light, foregrounded Chryssa’s formal concern with abstraction, language, and technical innovation.

John and Dominique de Menil were early champions of Chryssa’s work and saw the connection between their collection of ancient sculpture from the Cyclades islands and Chryssa’s Cycladic Books, 1954–57. This series of plaster and clay reliefs underscores her interest in the interplay of light and shadow.

Exhibition-related public programs included a talk with author Prudence Peiffer about her recent book, The Slip: The New York City Street That Changed American Art Forever, and a panel discussion exploring the intersection of technical mastery and artistry in neon and its conservation needs.

Chryssa & New York debuted at Dia Chelsea, New York, and traveled to Wrightwood 659, Chicago, after its presentation at the Menil. The exhibition was accompanied by the first major publication about the artist in more than thirty years.

Chryssa & New York was co-organized by the Menil Collection and Dia Art Foundation. The exhibition was co-curated by Michelle White, Senior Curator, The Menil Collection, and Megan Holly Witko, External Curator, Dia Art Foundation.

Major funding for this exhibition was provided by the Henry Luce Foundation; and a gift in memory of Virginia P. Rorschach. Additional support comes from Julie and John Cogan, Jr.; Suzanne Deal Booth; Clare Casademont and Michael Metz; Jereann and Holland Chaney; Barbara and Michael Gamson; Janet and Paul Hobby; Dillon Kyle and Sam Lasseter; Evy, Christina, and Eleni Pappas; Susanne and William E. Pritchard III; MaryRoss Taylor; the Susan Vaughan Foundation; and the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.

Hanne Darboven, Construction/Perforation New York [Konstruktion/Perforation New York], 1966/67. Pencil and ballpoint pen on graph paper, 29 1/2 × 27 in. (75 × 68.7 cm). Hanne Darboven Foundation, Hamburg, and Sprüth Magers. © Hanne Darboven Stiftung, Hamburg / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 2023. Photo: Timo Ohler

Hanne Darboven—Writing Time

October 27, 2023–February 11, 2024

Hanne Darboven—Writing Time explored the work of German conceptual artist Hanne Darboven (1941–2009) through the generative role the entwined actions of drawing and writing played within her practice. Best remembered for her immersive installations of individually framed sheets filled with text formulations and collaged images, Darboven developed an artistic practice around her systematic investigations of time and its visualization. At the heart of this practice was the question of how to picture the unfolding of history, the passage of time, and one’s experience within both.

Writing Time was organized around three watershed groups of work in Darboven’s practice: abstract drawings, date calculations, and monumental installations. It opened with a selection of the artist’s earliest works, the Constructions, a series of abstract drawings in which the artist mapped number patterns onto graph paper, translating them into diagonal lines that increase and decrease in length sequentially. In the second defining motif of her career, Darboven analyzed the calendar as a supposedly objective instrument for measuring time. The artist’s abstract drawings were transformed into works that ambiguously create images of living through time. The results could range from a composition of calligraphic strokes to a set of consecutively drawn boxes. In Six Books on 1968, every day of the year is represented as a single number, what Darboven termed the “K-value,” created by adding up all the figures in a given date. This makes January 1, 1968, for example, equal to 16K (1 + 1 + 6 + 8).

The exhibition culminated with Inventions That Have Changed Our World, 1996, a set of more than 1,300 individually framed sheets that incorporate all the hallmarks of her practice. Filling multiple galleries, this work consists of grid formations, written calculations, transcribed text, found sculptures, and pasted images. It documents each day of the 20th century in Darboven’s formula for date calculations and assigns an inventor—from Johannes Gutenberg to the Wright Brothers—to represent each of the ten decades in that century.

Hanne Darboven—Writing Time was curated by Kelly Montana, Assistant Curator, Menil Drawing Institute. The show was accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue that features essays by Montana and Dieter Schwarz, independent curator and former director of the Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland.

This exhibition was generously supported by Suzanne Deal Booth; Diane and Michael Cannon; Sheila Noeth and Ted Dohmen; John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation; Janie C. Lee; and the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.

Chryssa, Times Square Sky, 1962. Aluminum, steel, and neon, 60 × 60 × 9 1/2 in. (152.4 × 152.4 × 24.1 cm).

Collection Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Gift of the T.B. Walker Foundation, 1964. © The Estate of Chryssa, National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens

Janet Sobel: All-Over

February 23–August 11, 2024

Janet Sobel: All-Over highlighted the abstract work of Janet Sobel (1893–1968), a pioneering artist who flourished in the New York art world in the 1940s. Presenting some thirty paintings and drawings the artist created during her short-lived but meteoric career, the exhibition showcased Sobel’s innovative approach to abstraction, which came to be known as “all-over” painting. It also represented the first time her major paintings had been reunited in more than sixty years.

Sobel devised experimental techniques to achieve her desired effects, often dripping and pouring her paint, blowing it with a pipette, marbling the wet colors together, and tipping the support to manipulate the composition. She also embraced non-traditional supports, ranging from glass and tile to cardboard, envelopes, and book covers.

Sobel’s first show opened in 1944 at New York’s Puma Gallery. Peggy Guggenheim, a prominent dealer and collector, subsequently declared Sobel “the best woman painter by far (in America)” and devoted a solo show at her gallery to the artist in 1946. In 1961, American art critic Clement Greenberg described her technique as “the first really all-over effect that I had seen.” With this term he invoked a style of abstraction, newly emergent in the 1940s, in which the composition extends from corner to corner and edge to edge, with no apparent center.

In 1947, at the height of her success, Sobel moved to New Jersey. Around the same time, she developed an allergy to the paints she commonly used in her work, and Guggenheim closed her Manhattan art gallery. While Sobel continued to make work, notably drawings, she did not exhibit in New York City again and was soon written out of accounts of the emergence of all-over abstraction.

Janet Sobel: All-Over brought together significant works from American museums, private collections, and the artist’s family to reveal Sobel’s exceptionally inventive and influential approach to modern abstraction. The show included a selection of works on paper that demonstrated her approach to drawing, with a series of parallel linear strokes that knit foreground and background together into dense, interlocking patterns.

Janet Sobel: All-Over was curated by Natalie Dupêcher, Associate Curator of Modern Art, The Menil Collection. The exhibition was organized with the support of the Sobel family.

This exhibition was generously supported by Judy and Charles Tate; Henrietta Alexander; Eddie Allen and Chinhui Juhn; Cindy and David Fitch; Frost Bank; Caroline Huber; MBJLB Trust and Jacquelyn Barish; Susan and Francois de Menil; Mark Wawro and Melanie Gray; MaryRoss Taylor; and the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.

Asawa, Untitled (SD.012, Tied-Wire

with Six-Branch Center and

Ruth Asawa Through Line

March 22–July 21, 2024

Ruth Asawa Through Line, the first exhibition to focus on the lifelong drawing practice of Ruth Asawa (1926–2013), presented drawings, collages, watercolors, and sketchbooks alongside stamped prints, paperfolds, and copper-foil works, showing the breadth of the artist’s innovative and influential career. Widely recognized as a sculptor, Asawa drew daily, referring to the act as her “greatest pleasure and the most difficult.” The retrospective featured more than one hundred works from public and private collections, many of which were on view for the first time.

Organized thematically, the presentation opened with foundational lessons that the artist absorbed and built upon at Black Mountain College in the late 1940s. Subsequent sections examined the function of repetition and the development of specific motifs and approaches—from the Greek meander to paper folded in structural patterns—and how they recurred and changed throughout her career.

Her best-known body of work, her form-within-a-form looped-wire sculptures, which she described as three-dimensional drawings in space, are an extension of her drawing practice. Also on display were Asawa’s line drawings and watercolors as well as the embossed copper sheets and collages that showcased Asawa’s exploration of transparency, layering, and compositional balance in two dimensions.

Origami was an important aspect of the artist’s life and practice, as exemplified in Untitled (S.691, Wall-Mounted Paperfold with Horizontal Stripes), 1951, and other similar works that emphasize the connection between art, geometry, and nature.

Surveying Asawa’s impressive range and expansive approach, Ruth Asawa Through Line offered an unparalleled window into Asawa’s resourceful approach to drawing, with her attention to materials, line, surface, and space.

The presentation was accompanied by an illustrated, scholarly catalogue copublished by the Menil Collection and the Whitney Museum of American Art, distributed by Yale University Press.

Ruth Asawa Through Line was co-organized by the Menil and the Whitney, in close collaboration with the estate of Ruth Asawa. The show was co-curated by Edouard Kopp, John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation Chief Curator, Menil Drawing Institute, and Kim Conaty, Steven and Ann Ames Curator of Drawings and Prints, Whitney Museum of American Art, with Kirsten Marples, Curatorial Associate, Menil Drawing Institute, and Scout Hutchinson, Curatorial Fellow, Whitney Museum of American Art.

Major funding for this exhibition was provided by the Henry Luce Foundation; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; and Christie’s. Additional support comes from Judy and Charles Tate; David Zwirner; Eddie Allen and Chinhui Juhn; The Brown Foundation, Inc./Nancy Abendshein; Clare Casademont and Michael Metz; Hilda Curran; Barbara and Michael Gamson; Janet and Paul Hobby; Linda and George Kelly; Dillon Kyle and Sam Lasseter; Susan and Francois de Menil; Franci Neely; Susanne and William E. Pritchard III; Leslie and Shannon Sasser; Bill Stewart and Johanna Brassert; Mark Wawro and Melanie Gray; Ann and Mathew Wolf Drawing Exhibition Fund; Nina and Michael Zilkha; and the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.

Ruth

Sculpture Drawing

Drops at the Ends) ca. 1970s. Ink on paper, 14 × 10 3/4

Photo: Hudson Cuneo

Janet Sobel, Heavenly Sympathy, ca. 1947.

Oil on canvas, 54 1/2 × 34 1/2 in. (138.4 × 87.6 cm). Courtesy of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. © Janet Sobel. Photo: Edward C. Robinson III

Abstraction after Modernism: Recent Acquisitions

April 26–August 25, 2024

Abstraction after Modernism: Recent Acquisitions celebrated museum acquisitions from the past fifteen years and showcased the breadth of artists’ approaches to abstraction since the mid-20th century. The Menil Collection continues to actively grow its collection through promised gifts, acquisitions, and bequests, including significant works by women and artists of color. For this presentation, the Menil brought together more than forty abstract paintings, works on paper, and sculpture by artists such as Agnes Denes, Suzan Frecon, Sam Gilliam, Ellsworth Kelly, Rick Lowe, and Richard Serra.

John and Dominique de Menil began collecting abstract art in the 1940s, believing that it offered the viewer a heightened experience. “In a world cluttered with images,” Dominique de Menil said, “only abstract art can bring us to the threshold of the divine.” The artists featured in this exhibition focused on formal elements—such as line, texture, color, and shape—to move beyond representation, communicating ideas, emotions, and theories that responded to their present moments.

The first gallery included four mixed media works from Sam Gilliam’s Jail Jungle series of the late 1960s. These three-dimensional assemblages reference self-portraiture and were created from found objects and ephemera soaked and splattered with pigment, highlighting the artist’s penchant for exploration.

Two additional galleries were devoted to individual artists—Leslie Hewitt and Richard Tuttle—both of whom installed their pieces at the Menil. Hewitt’s series of sculptures, Untitled (Where Paths Meet, Turn Away, Then Align Again), 2012, depicts forgotten or unwritten histories. Tuttle’s provocative approach in the placement of his whimsical works— from putting them directly on the floor to hanging them at unexpected heights on the wall—was intended to intensify visitors’ perception of the space and their movement within it.

The works on view in this exhibition reflected the enduring belief, shared by many contemporary artists, that the language of abstraction can be a deep and direct expression of the world around us. Abstraction after Modernism was evidence of the museum’s longstanding and stalwart commitment to artists, both deepening existing relationships and opening new paths to support contemporary artistic vision.

Abstraction after Modernism was curated by Michelle White, Senior Curator, The Menil Collection, and Kelly Montana, Assistant Curator, Menil Drawing Institute.

This exhibition was generously supported by Nora and Bob Ackerley; Bettie Cartwright; Hilda Curran; Barbara and Michael Gamson; Linda and George Kelly; Franci Neely; Carol and David Neuberger; Scott and Judy Nyquist; Bill Stewart and Johanna Brassert; and the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.

Rick Lowe, Untitled , 2020. Acrylic paint and paper collage on canvas, 72 × 60 in. (182.9 × 152.4 cm). The Menil Collection, Houston, purchased with funds provided by the John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation. © Rick Lowe Studio

Side-Blown Trumpet or Horn, early to mid 20th century

Possibly Alamblak peoples

Papua New Guinea, Karawari River, reportedly Chimbut Village

Wood and paint

21 3/4 × 3 3/4 × 4 in. (55.2 × 9.5 × 10.2 cm)

Gift from the Adelaide de Menil and Edmund Carpenter Collection 2023-19.3

Hunting Charm (yipwon), early-mid 20th century

Possibly Alamblak peoples or Yimam peoples

Papua New Guinea, East Sepik Province, Karawari River

Wood

8 1/2 × 2 1/4 × 5/8 in. (21.6 × 5.7 × 1.5 cm)

Gift from the Adelaide de Menil and Edmund Carpenter Collection 2023-19.8

Allora & Calzadilla

American and Cuban, working together from 1995

Solar Catastrophe 2011

Broken solar cells on linen

92 7/8 × 74 1/4 × 2 1/4 in. (235.9 × 188.6 × 5.7 cm)

Gift of Barbara and Michael Gamson 2023-11

Fly Whisk (tahiri ra’a), late 18th-19th century

Leonora Carrington

British, 1917–2011

Crocodiles (Cocodrilos), 1974

Lithograph

21 3/4 × 29 3/4 in. (55.2 × 75.6 cm)

Gift of James Kralik in honor of Patricia Covo Johnson and Betty Moody, and in memory of Lucas Johnson 2023-14

Federico Castellón

American, 1914–1971

Untitled (Nudes with Surrealist Figure in a Box) 1935 Ink on paper

16 × 11 7/8 in. (40.6 × 30.2 cm)

Purchased with funds provided by Barbara and Jim Metcalf 2023-17.1

Untitled (Surrealist Landscape with Adam and Eve and Transforming Tree), 1935

Ink with wash on paper

16 × 11 7/8 in. (40.6 × 30.2 cm)

Purchased with funds provided by Barbara and Jim Metcalf 2023-17.2

George Condo

American, born 1957

Untitled [Modern Man], 1993 Charcoal on paper

13 7/8 × 10 in. (35.3 × 25.4 cm)

Gift of Christina and Norman Diekman 2023-26.1

Possibly Austral Islanders

Austral Islands

Wood, sennit, shells, and vegetable fibers

23 × 6 1/16 × 4 5/16 in. (58.4 × 15.4 × 11 cm)

Gift from the Adelaide de Menil and Edmund Carpenter Collection 2023-19.4

Wallace Berman

American, 1926–1976

Untitled ca. 1954

Magazine page, press type, and printed acetate stapled to cardboard with ink inscription

12 5/8 × 9 1/4 in. (32 × 23.5 cm)

Gift of Caroline Huber and the estate of Walter Hopps 2024-14.1

Marcel Broodthaers

Belgian, 1924–1976

The Black Flag (Le drapeau noir) 1968 Embossed plastic relief

33 1/8 × 47 1/2 in. (84.1 × 120.7 cm)

Bequest of Bernice Rose 2024-2.1

Tacita Dean

English, born 1965

Found Cy, Houston, 2024

Found postcard

3 1/2 × 5 3/8 in. (8.9 × 13.7 cm)

Gift of the artist

2024- 8

Lord Byron died, 2003

Gelatin silver photograph 10/33

15 5/8 × 23 5/8 in. (39.6 × 59.9 cm)

Purchased with funds provided by Scott and Judy Nyquist

2024-13.1

Joseph von Eichendorff died 2003

Gelatin silver photograph 10/33

15 5/8 × 23 9/16 in. (39.6 × 59.8 cm)

Purchased with funds provided by Scott and Judy Nyquist

2024-13.2

Charles Dickens died, 2003

Gelatin silver photograph 10/33

15 3/4 × 23 1/2 in. (40 × 59.7 cm)

Purchased with funds provided by Scott and Judy Nyquist

2024-13.3

Arthur Rimbaud died 2003

Gelatin silver photograph 10/33

15 3/4 × 23 1/2 in. (40 × 59.7 cm)

Purchased with funds provided by Scott and Judy Nyquist

2024-13.4

Walt Whitman died 2003

Gelatin silver photograph 10/33

15 3/4 × 23 1/2 in. (40 × 59.7 cm)

Purchased with funds provided by Scott and Judy Nyquist

2024-13.5

Stephane Mallarmé died 2003

Gelatin silver photograph 10/33

15 3/4 × 23 1/2 in. (40 × 59.7 cm)

Purchased with funds provided by Scott and Judy Nyquist 2024-13.6

Gustavo Díaz Argentinean, born 1969

Imaginary Flight Patterns V, 2021 Graphite on paper

42 × 60 in. (106.7 × 152.4 cm)

Purchased with funds provided by the William F. Stern Acquisitions Fund 2023-18

Marcel Duchamp French, 1887–1968

Untitled ca. 1963 Ink on printed card

5 × 3 1/4 in. (12.7 × 8.3 cm)

Gift of Caroline Huber and the estate of Walter Hopps 2024-14.2

At the Pasadena Art Museum 1963

Ink on paper with black-and-white photo scale

11 × 8 1/2 in. (27.9 × 21.6 cm)

Gift of Caroline Huber and the estate of Walter Hopps 2024-14.3

Pocket Chess Set, 1961–64

Magnetized board enclosed in black leather wallet and coated paper chess pieces

5 7/8 × 4 7/8 × 3/4 in. (15 × 12.4 × 1.9 cm)

(closed)

Gift of Caroline Huber and the estate of Walter Hopps 2024-14.4

Carroll Dunham

American, born 1949

Untitled (4/28/95) 1995

Wax crayon, carbon pencil, and graphite on paper

16 3/8 × 11 3/8 in. (41.7 × 29 cm)

Gift of Christina and Norman Diekman 2023-26.2

Untitled (7/16/95), 1995

Wax crayon and graphite on paper

15 7/8 × 21 1/2 in. (40.4 × 54.6 cm)

Gift of Christina and Norman Diekman 2023-26.3

Gray Foy

American, 1922–2012

Abandoned Nest, 1969

Graphite on paper prepared with watercolor

13 1/4 × 13 1/2 in. (33.7 × 34.3 cm)

Anonymous gift 2023- 9

Sam Gilliam

American, 1933–2022

Composed (formerly Dark As I Am)

1968–74

Paint, found objects, and wood door

80 × 42 × 6 1/2 in. (203.2 × 106.7 × 16.5 cm)

Gift of Annie Gawlak and the Sam Gilliam Foundation

2024-12.1

Mister Van Der Zee, 1974

From the Jail Jungle series

Paint, textiles, and found objects

71 1/2 × 34 1/2 × 6 3/4 in. (181.6 × 87.6 × 17.1 cm)

Gift of Annie Gawlak and the Sam Gilliam Foundation 2024-12.2

Jail Jungle 1973

From the Jail Jungle series

Paint, textiles, and found objects

74 × 36 × 4 in. (188 × 91.4 × 10.2 cm)

Gift of Annie Gawlak and the Sam Gilliam Foundation 2024-12.3

Untitled, 1973

From the Jail Jungle series

Paint, textiles, and found objects

73 × 34 × 5 in. (185.4 × 86.4 × 12.7 cm)

Gift of Annie Gawlak and the Sam Gilliam Foundation

2024-12.4

Dorothy Hood American, 1919–2000 Clouds 1970 Oil on canvas

120 × 96 in. (304.8 × 243.8 cm)

Purchased with funds provided by Janet and Paul Hobby, Linda and George Kelly, Franci Neely, Westwood Wealth Management, Poppi Massey, Mark and Geralyn Kever, and Susanne and William E. Pritchard III 2023-23

Earlie Hudnall, Jr. American, born 1946 White Church at the Track, 1984 Gelatin silver print

Image: 10 × 11 1/2 in. (25.4 ×

(27.9 ×

Gift of Betty Moody in memory of Clint Willour and Reid Mitchell 2024-7.1

Craig Kauffman American, 1932–2010 Untitled, 1952 Paint on paper

11 1/2 × 13 in. (29.2 × 33 cm)

Gift of Caroline Huber and the estate of Walter Hopps 2024- 6.1

Untitled, 1953 Graphite and watercolor on paper

22 3/8 × 29 3/4 in. (56.9 × 75.6 cm)

Gift of Caroline Huber and the estate of Walter Hopps 2024- 6.2

Untitled, ca. 1954 Ink on paper

24 × 18 3/4 in. (61 ×

Gift of Caroline Huber and the estate of Walter Hopps 2024- 6.3

Chico Hopps as the Dictator of Art, ca. 1959 Ink on paper

10 7/8 × 13 7/8 in. (27.7 × 35.3 cm)

Gift of Caroline Huber and the estate of Walter Hopps 2024- 6.4

Feather Box (Papahou), mid 18th‑19th century Maori peoples. New Zealand, Possibly North Island. Wood. 18 3/4 × 8 1/2 × 3 1/2 in. (47.6 × 21.6 × 8.9 cm).

Gift from the Adelaide de Menil and Edmund Carpenter Collection

Gustavo Díaz, Imaginary Flight Patterns V 2021. Graphite on paper, 42 × 60 in. (106.7 × 152.4 cm).

Photo: Tom Dubrock, Courtesy of Sicardi Ayers Bacino

Sam Gilliam, Composed ( formerly Dark As I Am) 1968–74. Paint, found objects, and wood door,

80 × 42 × 6 1/2 in. (203.2 × 106.7 × 16.5 cm). Gift of Annie Gawlak and the Sam Gilliam Foundation

Untitled (possible portrait of Walter), 1953

Graphite on paper

26 1/4 × 20 in. (66.7 × 50.8 cm)