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99-1141: While the bulk of the collection is made up of a once-private collection, Menil Foundation, Inc. is a tax-exempt, nonprofit, public charity corporation formed under Section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code. Additionally the Menil receives public funds granted by the City of Houston, the State of Texas, and the federal government through the National Endowment for the Arts. The museum's holdings are diverse, including early to mid-twentieth century works of Yves Tanguy , René Magritte , Max Ernst , Man Ray , Marcel Duchamp , Henri Matisse , Jackson Pollock , and Pablo Picasso , among others. The museum also maintains an extensive collection of pop art and contemporary art from Andy Warhol , Mark Rothko , Robert Rauschenberg , Vija Celmins and Cy Twombly , Jr., among others. Also included in

198-611: A German-American jurist and political philosopher, to write a legal code to regulate Union soldiers' behavior toward Confederate prisoners, noncombatants, spies and property. The resulting General Orders No.100 or the Lieber Code , legally recognized cultural property as a protected category in war. The Lieber Code had far-reaching results as it became the basis for the Hague Convention of 1907 and 1954 and has led to Standing Rules of Engagement (ROE) for US troops today. A portion of

297-417: A contract to paint 12 pieces a year. With his fixed income, he painted less and ended up creating only eight works of art for Breton. In December 1930, at an early screening of Buñuel and Dalí's L'Age d'Or , right-wing activists went to the lobby of the cinema where the film was being screened, and destroyed art works by Dalí, Joan Miró , Man Ray , Tanguy, and others. Throughout the 1930s, Tanguy adopted

396-499: A distinction between public and private uses of art and what is appropriate for each and he also asserts that the primary purpose of art is religious expression and veneration. He also sets standards for the responsibilities of imperial administration abroad to the code of ethics surrounding the collection of art from defeated Greece and Rome in wartime. Later, both Napoleon and Lord Elgin would be likened to Verres in condemnations of their plundering of art. The Napoleonic looting of art

495-491: A knife privately and at social gatherings. Sage, according to friends' accounts, made no response to her husband's aggression. Toward the end of the war, the couple moved to Woodbury , Connecticut , converting an old farmhouse into an artists' studio. They spent the rest of their lives there. In 1948, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. In January 1955, Tanguy suffered a fatal stroke at Woodbury. His body

594-558: A lack of formal national legislation that expressly outlines general claims and repatriation procedures. As a result, guidance on repatriation stems from museum authority and government guidelines, such as the Museum Ethnographers' Group (1994) and the Museums Association Guidelines on Restitution and Repatriation (2000). This means that individual museum policies on repatriation can vary significantly depending on

693-459: A lesson of human development and progress: "the forward march of human civilization from its classical origins in Greece and Rome, through Renaissance Italy, to modern-day London". The restoration of monuments was often made in colonial states to make natives feel as if in their current state, they were no longer capable of greatness. Furthermore, sometimes colonial rulers argued that the ancestors of

792-447: A nation declares ownership of an object, which according to this theory is not exclusive. Some critics and even supporters of this theory seek to limit its scope. For example, proponent of cultural internationalism John H. Merryman  [ de ] suggests that unauthorized archaeological discoveries should not be exported as information would be lost that would have remained intact if they stayed where they were discovered. It

891-595: A part of colonial national history. Museums often argue that if objects were to be repatriated they would be seldom seen and not properly taken care of. International agreements such as the 1970 UNESCO Convention against Illicit Export under the Act to implement the convention (the Cultural Property Implementation Act) often do not regard Indigenous repatriation claims. Instead, these conventions focus on returning national cultural heritage to states. Since

990-490: A part of the Muslim world. The writings of European archaeologists and tourists illustrate the impression that modern Egyptians were uncivilized, savage, and the antithesis of the splendor of ancient Egypt. Museums furnished by colonial looting have largely shaped the way a nation imagines its dominion, the nature of the human beings under its power, the geography of the land, and the legitimacy of its ancestors, working to suggest

1089-470: A particular meaning for the French because it was associated with a myth in connection to the founding of Rome. When the art was brought into Paris, the pieces arrived in the fashion of a triumphal procession modeled after the common practice of ancient Romans. Napoleon's extensive plunder of Italy was criticized by such French artists as Quatremère de Quincy (1755–1849), who circulated a petition that gathered

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1188-536: A process of political inheriting. It is necessary to understand the paradoxical way in which the objects on display at museums are tangible reminders of the power held by those who gaze at them. Eliot Colla describes the structure of the Egyptian sculpture room in the British Museum as an assemblage that "form[s] an abstract image of the globe with London at the center". The British Museum, as Colla describes, presents

1287-534: A relationship which led to his second marriage. With the outbreak of World War II , Sage moved back to her native New York , and Tanguy, judged unfit for military service, followed her. He would spend the rest of his life in the United States. Sage and Tanguy were married in Reno, Nevada , on August 17, 1940. Their marriage proved durable but tense. Both drank heavily, and Tanguy assaulted Sage verbally and sometimes physically, pushing her and sometimes even threatening her with

1386-430: A scholar's cloister, rooms for seminars and other events, and a conservation lab, all wrapped around three courtyards. On June 13, 2012, a 22-year-old museum visitor named Uriel Landeros defaced an original Picasso at the museum, Woman in a Red Armchair , using black spray paint to stencil a bull and a matador and the word Conquista on the work of art. The vandal, a self-proclaimed artist, said that he did it to make

1485-655: A separate building near the main collection, the Byzantine Fresco Chapel formerly housed two 13th century Byzantine church frescoes, an apse semi-dome of the Virgin Panagia and a dome featuring a depiction of Christ known as Christ Pantocrator . After having been removed from a church in Lysi in Turkish-occupied North Cyprus by the illegal art trade, they were recovered during the 1980s. According to

1584-465: A site for long-term contemporary installation work. The first exhibition in the reopened space is "The Infinity Machine", a new work commissioned by the Menil by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller . In 1992, Renzo Piano was commissioned by Dominique de Menil to build a small, independent pavilion dedicated to the work of Cy Twombly , Jr. in the grounds of the Menil Collection. In contrast to

1683-637: A specific country, can be difficult to provide if the looting and subsequent movements or transactions were undocumented. For example, in 1994 the British Library acquired Kharosthi manuscript fragments and has since refused to return them unless their origin could be identified (Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Tajikistan), of which the library itself was unsure. Art was repatriated for the first time in modern history when Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington returned to Italy art that had been plundered by Napoleon, after his and Marshal Blücher's armies defeated

1782-472: A statement, and did not intend to destroy the painting. Landeros was sentenced to two years in prison for felony graffiti and criminal mischief. The museum continues to be governed by the Menil Foundation. The foundation has been solely responsible for acquisition funds, which during the first years averaged more than $ 1 million annually, and operating disbursements of between $ 2.7 million and $ 2.9 million

1881-508: A triumphal symbol of foreign territories brought under Roman rule. However, the triumphal procession of Marcus Claudius Marcellus after the fall of Syracuse in 211 is believed to have set a standard of reverence to conquered sanctuaries as it engendered disapproval by critics and a negative social reaction. According to Pliny the Elder , the Emperor Augustus was sufficiently embarrassed by

1980-571: A year. Nearly half of the money for the museum building was derived from outside sources in Houston, in particular the Cullen Foundation and the Brown Foundation , which contributed $ 5 million each. By 2001, the Menil Foundation's endowment is $ 200 million. The budget pays in part for the museum's operation and for exhibitions, research, and catalogs. Brown & Root heir Louisa Stude Sarofim

2079-451: Is Wounded! (1927) is one of Tanguy's most impressive paintings. Brodskaïa writes that the painting reflects his debt to Giorgio de Chirico – falling shadows and a classical torso – and conjures up a sense of doom: the horizon, the emptiness of the plain, the solitary plant, the smoke, the helplessness of the small figures. Tanguy said that it was an image he saw entirely in his imagination before starting to paint it. He also claimed he took

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2178-413: Is further argued that this theory has close resemblance to the 'universal museums' theory. Following a series of repatriation claims, leading museums issued a declaration detailing the importance of the universal museum. The declaration argues that over time, objects acquired by the museums have become part of the heritage of that nation and that museums work to serve people from every country as "agents in

2277-554: Is noted for the 167 "savants" he took with him including scientists and other specialists equipped with tools for recording, surveying and documenting ancient and modern Egypt and its natural history. Among other things, the expedition discoveries included the Rosetta Stone and the Valley of the Kings near Thebes. The French military campaign was short-lived and unsuccessful and the majority of

2376-662: Is now displayed in the Louvre Museum in Paris, is one of the earliest works of art known to have been looted in war. The stele commemorating Naram-Sin's victory in a battle against the Lullubi people in 2250 BCE was taken as war plunder about a thousand years later by the Elamites who relocated it to their capital in Susa , Iran. There, it was uncovered in 1898 by French archaeologists. The Palladion

2475-454: Is the Rothko Chapel . The Menil Foundation began buying bungalow -style homes in the area in the 1960s, painting each the same shade of gray to establish a commonality. When the museum building was constructed, it was painted what has become known as "Menil gray" to coordinate with the bungalows. In 2013, the landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh was appointed to enhance and expand

2574-609: Is the first ground-up building in the United States dedicated to the exhibit, study, storage and conservation of modern and contemporary artworks on paper, according to the Menil Collection. Los Angeles–based architecture firm Johnston Marklee and New York–based landscape architecture firm Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates designed the Drawing Institute. They worked in close collaboration with the New York–based structural engineering firm Guy Nordenson and Associates. Johnston Marklee

2673-570: The British Museum 's policy on the restitution of human remains. The Hague Convention of 1907 aimed to forbid pillaging and sought to make wartime plunder the subject of legal proceedings, although in practice the defeated countries did not gain any leverage in their demands for repatriation. The Hague Convention of 1954 for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict took place in

2772-494: The Iraqi National Museum looting, UNESCO Director-General, Kōichirō Matsuura convened a meeting in Paris on 17 April 2003, to assess the situation and coordinate international networks in order to recover the cultural heritage of Iraq. On 8 July 2003, Interpol and UNESCO signed an amendment to their 1999 Cooperation Agreement in the effort to recover looted Iraqi artifacts. The UNIDROIT (International Institute for

2871-466: The New Imperialism era of European colonialism . Colonialism and the field of archaeology mutually supported one another as the need to acquire knowledge of ancient artifacts justified further colonial dominance. As further justification for colonial rule, the archaeological discoveries also shaped the way European colonialists identified with the artifacts and the ancient people who made them. In

2970-560: The Soviet Union and ravaged or destroyed 1,670 Russian Orthodox churches, 237 Catholic churches and 532 synagogues. A well-known recent case of wartime looting was the plundering of ancient artifacts from the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad at the outbreak of the war in 2003. Although this was not a case in which the victors plundered art from their defeated enemy, it was result of

3069-547: The 1980s, decolonization efforts have resulted in more museums attempting to work with local Indigenous groups to secure a working relationship and the repatriation of their cultural heritage. This has resulted in local and international legislation such as the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects which take Indigenous perspectives into consideration in

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3168-611: The Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (CCIPA). In 2003, Britain and Switzerland put into effect statutory prohibitions against illegally exported Iraqi artifacts. In the UK, the Dealing in Cultural Objects Bill was established in 2003 that prohibited the handling of illegal cultural objects. Repatriation in the UK has been highly debated in recent years, however there is still

3267-523: The French at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. This decision contrasted sharply to a long-held tradition to the effect that " to the victors go the spoils ." This is remarkable considering that in the battle of Waterloo alone, the financial and human costs were colossal; the decision to not only refrain from plundering France but to repatriate France's prior seizures from the Netherlands, Italy, Prussia, and Spain,

3366-616: The Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its countries of origin or its restitution in case of illicit appropriation was established. It consists of 22 members elected by the General Conference of UNESCO to facilitate bilateral negotiations for the restitution of "any cultural property which has a fundamental significance from the point of view of the spiritual values and cultural heritage of

3465-500: The Iraq war, Iraq's rich archaeological sites and areas of excavated land (Iraq is presumed to possess vast undiscovered treasures) have fallen victim to widespread looting. Hordes of looters disinterred enormous craters around Iraq's archaeological sites, sometimes using bulldozers. It is estimated that between 10,000 and 15,000 archaeological sites in Iraq have been despoiled. In 1863 US President Abraham Lincoln summoned Francis Lieber ,

3564-583: The Menil Collection’s 30-acre campus. The master site plan, by David Chipperfield Architects , calls for the creation of additional green space and walkways, a cafe, and new buildings for art. The Menil Collection is open to the public, and admission is free. The Museum is open Wednesday through Sunday 11 am to 7 pm. It is located near the University of St. Thomas in the Neartown area of Houston. Located in

3663-552: The Menil campus, adjacent to the Cy Twombly Gallery and north of the Dan Flavin Installation. Modestly scaled, the flat-roofed building tops out at 16 feet (4.9 metres), no taller than the neighboring gray bungalows on the 30-acre campus. Half of its space is for underground storage, while the ground level will contain a large, flexible central living room, about 3,000 square feet (280 square metres) of exhibition space,

3762-507: The Menil’s main museum building and the surrounding bungalows, the Cy Twombly Gallery is built of sand-colored block concrete, is square in plan and contains nine galleries. Similar to the main museum, it is lit through the roof, but here with an external canopy of louvers, shading the sloping, hipped glass roof, below which a fabric ceiling diffuses the light, giving a reduced intensity of around 300 lux. The Menil Drawing Institute, opened in 2018,

3861-636: The Nazis argued that Germanic people of Northern Europe was a distinct race and cradle of Western civilization that was superior to the Jewish race. . In other cases, archaeology allows rulers to justify the domination of neighboring peoples as Saddam Hussein used Mesopotamia 's magnificent past to justify the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Some scholars employ the idea that identity is fluid and constructed, especially national identity of modern nation-states, to argue that

3960-650: The Pentagon to ensure that the US government would protect Iraq's important archaeological heritage, with the National Museum in Baghdad being at the top of the list of concerns. Between 8 April, when the museum was vacated and 12 April, when some of the staff returned, an estimated 15,000 items and an additional 5,000 cylinder seals were stolen. Moreover, the National Library was plundered of thousands of cuneiform tablets and

4059-615: The ROE clauses instruct US troops not to attack "schools, museums, national monuments, and any other historical or cultural sites unless they are being used for a military purpose and pose a threat". In 2004 the US passed the Bill HR1047 for the Emergency Protection for Iraq Cultural Antiquities Act, which allows the President authority to impose emergency import restrictions by Section 204 of

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4158-452: The Sovereigns to gratify the people of France on this subject, at the expense of their own people, but the sacrifice they would make would be impolitic, as it would deprive them of the opportunity of giving the people of France a great moral lesson. Wellington also forbade pilfering among his troops as he believed that it led to the lack of discipline and distraction from military duty. He held

4257-578: The Unification of Private Law) Convention on Stolen or Illicitly Exported Cultural Objects of 1995 called for the return of illegally exported cultural objects. Catharine Titi suggests that states' attitudes to the repatriation of cultural property have changed dramatically in the last few years and that, as a consequence, a new rule of international law is emerging that requires the return of important cultural property to its country of origin, if it has been unlawfully or unethically removed. From early on,

4356-401: The access and/or repatriation of ceremonial objects and human remains in their possession through fair, transparent and effective mechanisms developed in conjunction with indigenous peoples concerned. The process of repatriation has often been fraught with issues though, resulting in the loss or improper repatriation of cultural heritage. The debate between public interest, Indigenous claims and

4455-478: The act of looting, whether in the context of imperialism , colonialism , or war . The contested objects vary widely and include sculptures , paintings , monuments , objects such as tools or weapons for purposes of anthropological study , and human remains . The looting of defeated peoples' cultural heritage by war has been common practice since ancient times. In the modern era, the Napoleonic looting of art

4554-439: The appreciation of many cultures. Other scholars would argue that this reasoning is a continuation of colonialist discourse attempting to appropriate the ancient art of colonized states and incorporate it into the narrative of Western history. In settler-colonial contexts, many Indigenous people that have experienced cultural domination by colonial powers have begun to request the repatriation of objects that are already within

4653-406: The appropriation of Egyptian art saw widespread interest and fascination throughout Europe, inciting a phenomenon which came to be called " Egyptomania ". A notable consequence of looting is its ability to hinder contemporary repatriation claims of cultural property to a country or community of origin. A process that requires proof of theft of an illegal transaction, or that the object originated from

4752-481: The bohemian lifestyle of the struggling artist with gusto, leading eventually to the failure of his first marriage. He had an intense affair with Peggy Guggenheim in 1938 when he went to London with his wife Jeannette Ducrocq to hang his first retrospective exhibition in Britain at her gallery Guggenheim Jeune . The exhibition was a great success and Guggenheim wrote in her autobiography that "Tanguy found himself rich for

4851-417: The building was set on fire with half a million books inside; fortunately, many of the manuscripts and books were preserved. A US task force was able to retrieve about half of the stolen artifacts by organizing and dispatching an inventory of missing objects and by declaring that there would be no punishment for anyone returning an item. In addition to the vulnerability of art and historical institutions during

4950-560: The case of Egypt, colonial Europe's mission was to bring the glory and magnificence of ancient Egypt closer to Europe and incorporate it into knowledge of world history, or better yet, use European history to place ancient Egypt in a new spotlight. With the archaeological discoveries, ancient Egypt was adopted into the Western historical narrative and came to take on a significance that had up until that time been reserved for ancient Greek and Roman civilization. The French revolutionaries justified

5049-473: The collected artifacts (including the Rosetta Stone) were seized by British troops, ending up in the British Museum . Nonetheless, the information gathered by the French expedition was soon after published in the several volumes of Description de l'Égypte , which included 837 copperplate engravings and over 3,000 drawings. In contrast to the disapproving public reaction to the looting of Italian works of art,

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5148-427: The colonial states. As a direct reaction and resistance to colonial oppression, archaeology was also used for the purpose of legitimating the existence of an independent nation-state. For example, Egyptian Nationalists utilized its ancient history to invent the political and expressive culture of " Pharaonism " as a response to Europe's " Egyptomania ". Some argue that in colonized states, nationalist archaeology

5247-407: The colonized people did not make the artifacts. Some scholars also argue that European colonialists used monumental archaeology and tourism to appear as the guardian of the colonized, reinforcing unconscious and undetectable ownership. Colonial rulers used peoples, religions, languages, artifacts, and monuments as source for reinforcing European nationalism, which was adopted and easily inherited from

5346-547: The current painting he was working on. This way of creating artwork may have been due to his very small studio which only had enough room for one wet piece. Through his friend Prévert, in around 1924 Tanguy was introduced into the circle of surrealist artists around André Breton . Tanguy quickly began to develop his own unique painting style , giving his first solo exhibition in Paris in 1927, and marrying his first wife Jeannette Ducrocq (b. 1896, d. 1977) later that same year. During this busy time of his life, Breton gave Tanguy

5445-571: The end of the century, when key works were returned to claimants. One of the most infamous cases of art plundering in wartime was the Nazi appropriation of art from both public and private holdings throughout Europe and Russia. The looting began before World War II with illegal seizures as part of a systematic persecution of Jews, which was included as a part of Nazi crimes during the Nuremberg Trials . During World War II, Germany plundered 427 museums in

5544-515: The field of archaeology was deeply involved in political endeavors and in the construction of national identities. This early relationship can be seen during the Renaissance and the proto-Italian reactions against the High Gothic movement, but the relationship became stronger during 19th century Europe when archaeology became institutionalized as a field of study furnished by artifacts acquired during

5643-481: The first time in his life". She purchased his pictures Toilette de L'Air and The Sun in Its Jewel Case (Le Soleil dans son écrin) for her collection. Tanguy also painted Peggy two beautiful earrings. The affair continued in both London and Paris and only finished when Tanguy met a fellow Surrealist artist who would become his second wife. In 1938, after seeing the work of fellow artist Kay Sage , Tanguy began

5742-517: The first victor to dedicate spoils taken from an enemy ruler to the Temple of Jupiter Feretrius . In Rome's many subsequent wars, blood-stained armor and weaponry were gathered and placed in temples as a symbol of respect toward the enemies' deities and as a way to win their patronage. As Roman power spread throughout Italy where Greek cities once reigned, Greek art was looted and ostentatiously displayed in Rome as

5841-445: The foundation of contradicting opinions regarding the transport of cultural objects. However, the dual theory of cultural internationalism and cultural nationalism is on the decline. Cultural internationalism has links to imperialism and decontextualization and suggests that cultural property is not tethered to one nation and belongs to everybody. Calls for repatriation can therefore be dismissed since they are often requested when

5940-596: The history of Roman plunder of Greek art to return some pieces to their original homes. A precedent for art repatriation was set in Roman antiquity when Cicero prosecuted Verres , a senate member and illegal appropriator of art. Cicero's speech influenced Enlightenment European thought and had an indirect impact on the modern debate about art repatriation. Cicero's argument uses military episodes of plunder as "case law" and expresses certain standards when it comes to appropriating cultural property of another people. Cicero makes

6039-485: The large-scale and systematic looting of Italy in 1796 by viewing themselves as the political successors of Rome, in the same way that ancient Romans saw themselves as the heirs of Greek civilization. They also supported their actions with the opinion that their sophisticated artistic taste would allow them to appreciate the plundered art. Napoleon's soldiers crudely dismantled the art by tearing paintings out of their frames hung in churches and sometimes causing damage during

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6138-465: The large-scale and systematic looting of Italy in 1796 by viewing themselves as the political successors of Rome, in the same way that ancient Romans saw themselves as the heirs of Greek civilization; by the same token, the appropriation of ancient Egyptian history as European history further legitimated Western colonial rule over Egypt. But while ancient Egypt became patrimony of the West, modern Egypt remained

6237-409: The legal issues involved such as theft and the legality of acquisitions and exports, etc. Two main theories seem to underpin the repatriation debate and cultural property law: cultural nationalism and cultural internationalism. These theories emerged and developed following the creation of many international conventions, such as the 1970 UNESCO Convention and the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention , and act as

6336-529: The main building: Cy Twombly Gallery (also designed by Piano); The Dan Flavin Installation at Richmond Hall, which houses Dominique de Menil's last commission (a series of three site-specific installations by Dan Flavin that were installed in 1998); The Byzantine Fresco Chapel ; and the Menil Drawing Institute. Another building founded by the de Menils, but now operating as an independent foundation,

6435-471: The mechanisms of colonial discourse, the nationalist discourse produced new forms of power. In the case of the Egyptian nationalist movement, the new form of power and meaning that surrounded the artifact furthered the Egyptian independence cause but continued to oppress the rural Egyptian population. Some scholars argue that archaeology can be a positive source of pride in cultural traditions, but can also be abused to justify cultural or racial superiority as

6534-463: The merchant navy before being drafted into the Army, where he befriended Jacques Prévert . At the end of his military service in 1922, he returned to Paris, where he worked various odd jobs. He stumbled upon a painting by Giorgio de Chirico and was so deeply impressed he resolved to become a painter himself in spite of his complete lack of formal training. Tanguy had a habit of being completely absorbed by

6633-479: The moral decision would be to restore the art in its apparently proper context. In a letter to Lord Castlereagh he wrote: The Allies then, having the contents of the museum justly in their power, could not do otherwise than restore them to the countries from which, contrary to the practice of civilized warfare, they had been torn during the disastrous period of the French revolution and the tyranny of Bonaparte. ... Not only, then, would it, in my opinion, be unjust in

6732-582: The most important international conventions related to cultural property law. The 1970 UNESCO Convention against Illicit Export under the Act to implement the convention (the Cultural Property Implementation Act) allowed for stolen objects to be seized, if there were documentation of it in a museum or institution of a state party, the convention also encouraged member states to adopt the convention within their own national laws. The following agreement in 1972 promoted world cultural and natural heritage. The 1978 UNESCO Convention strengthened existing provisions;

6831-1036: The museum's director; during his time in office, there were frequent clashes over the museum's direction and whether Rifkin was departing from the vision of its founder. Josef Helfenstein was named director in 2004. Until his departure in 2015, the Menil doubled its annual attendance, increased its endowment by almost 54 percent, and added more than 1,000 works to the collection, including pieces by Jasper Johns , Claes Oldenburg , Robert Rauschenberg , Richard Serra and Kara Walker . See also: List of companies in Houston See: List of colleges and universities in Houston [REDACTED] Category [REDACTED] Texas portal 29°44′14″N 95°23′55″W  /  29.73722°N 95.39861°W  / 29.73722; -95.39861 Yves Tanguy Raymond Georges Yves Tanguy (January 5, 1900 – January 15, 1955), known as just Yves Tanguy ( / ˌ iː v t ɒ̃ ˈ ɡ iː / ; French: [iv tɑ̃ɡi] ),

6930-545: The museum's permanent collection are antiquities and works of Byzantine , Medieval and tribal art . The Renzo Piano -designed museum opened to the public in June 1987. It is governed by The Menil Foundation, Incorporated, a non-profit charitable corporation established in 1954 whose stated purpose was to promote understanding and culture, primarily through the arts. Initially, the Foundation also pursued land banking to stabilize

7029-470: The museum's views, collections and other factors. The repatriation of human remains is governed by the Human Tissue Act 2004 . However, the Act itself does not create guidelines on the process of repatriation, it merely states it is legally possible for museums to do so. This again highlights that successful repatriation claims in the UK are dependent on museum policy and procedure. One example includes

7128-552: The museum, they were the only such frescoes in the Americas. They were held at the museum by agreement with their owners, the Church of Cyprus . In September 2011 the Menil Collection announced that the frescoes would be permanently returned to Cyprus in February 2012, an example of art repatriation . In January 2015, the Menil disclosed its plans to reuse the former consecrated chapel space as

7227-660: The neighborhood surrounding the museum, and structured the administration and operations of the collection. With Dominique de Menil (a member of the Schlumberger family) serving as president, early board members included the Menils' son Francois, daughter Philippa Pellizzi, Malcolm McCorquodale , Edmund Snow Carpenter , Miles Rudolph Glaser, and Mickey Leland . Dominique de Menil ran the museum until her death in December 1997. The museum campus has grown to include four satellite galleries to

7326-414: The people of a Member State or Associate Member of UNESCO and which has been lost as a result of colonial or foreign occupation or as a result of illicit appropriation". It was also created to "encourage the necessary research and studies for the establishment of coherent programmes for the constitution of representative collections in countries, whose cultural heritage has been dispersed". In response to

7425-407: The post-colonial countries have no real claims to the artifacts plundered from their borders since their cultural connections to the artifacts are indirect and equivocal. This argument asserts that artifacts should be viewed as universal cultural property and should not be divided among artificially created nation-states . Moreover, that encyclopedic museums are a testament to diversity, tolerance and

7524-420: The publication of the French report on the restitution of African cultural heritage in 2018, these debates have gained new international attention and have led to changes regarding the public role of museums and to restitutions on moral rather than merely legal grounds. War and the subsequent looting of defeated peoples have been common practice since ancient times. The stele of King Naram-Sin of Akkad , which

7623-453: The repatriation process. Notably, Article 12 of UNDRIP states: Indigenous peoples have the right to manifest, practise, develop and teach their spiritual and religious traditions, customs and ceremonies; the right to maintain, protect, and have access in privacy to their religious and cultural sites; the right to the use and control of their ceremonial objects; and the right to the repatriation of their human remains. States shall seek to enable

7722-492: The revival of traditional practices. This means that the repatriation of these objects is connected to the cultural survival of Indigenous people historically oppressed by colonialism. Colonial narratives surrounding " discovery " of the new world have historically resulted in Indigenous people's claim to cultural heritage being rejected. Instead, private and public holders have worked towards displaying these objects in museums as

7821-475: The sacramental significance of statuary in Ancient Greece as divine manifestations of the gods that symbolized power and were often believed to possess supernatural abilities. The sacred nature of the statues is further illustrated in the supposed suffering of the victorious Greeks afterward, including Odysseus , who was the mastermind behind the robbery. According to Roman myth, Rome was founded by Romulus ,

7920-567: The same borders. Objects of Indigenous cultural heritage , such as ceremonial objects, artistic objects, etc., have ended up in the hands of publicly and privately held collections which were often given up under economic duress, taken during assimilationist programs or simply stolen. The objects are often significant to the Indigenous ontologies possessing animacy and kinship ties. Objects such as particular instruments used in unique musical traditions, textiles used in spiritual practices or religious carvings have cult significance are connected to

8019-602: The shipping process. Napoleon's soldiers appropriated private collections and even the papal collection. The most famous artworks plundered included the Bronze Horses of Saint Mark in Venice (itself looted from the Sack of Constantinople in 1204) and the Laocoön and His Sons in Rome (both since returned), with the latter then being considered the most impressive sculpture. The Laocoön had

8118-569: The signatures of fifty other artists. With the founding of the Louvre museum in Paris in 1793, Napoleon's aim was to establish an encyclopedic exhibition of art history, which later both Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler attempted to emulate in their respective countries. Napoleon continued his art conquests in 1798 when he invaded Egypt in an attempt to safeguard French trade interests and to undermine Britain's access to India via Egypt. His expedition in Egypt

8217-472: The title of this and other works from psychiatric textbooks: "I remember spending a whole afternoon with ... André Breton ," he said, "leafing through books on psychiatry in the search for statements of patients which could be used as titles for paintings." Jennifer Mundy, however, discovered that the title of this painting and several others were taken from a book about paranormal phenomena, Traité de metaphysique (1922) by Dr Charles Richet . Tanguy's style

8316-766: The unprecedented nature of this repatriation effort, there are estimations only about 55% of what was taken was actually repatriated: the Louvre Director at the time, Vivant Denon , had sent out many important works to other parts of France before the British could take them. Many works remained in French museums, such as the Louvre, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris or other collections in France. Wellington viewed himself as representing all of Europe's nations and he believed that

8415-445: The unstable and chaotic conditions of war that allowed looting to happen and which some would argue was the fault of the invading US forces. Archaeologists and scholars criticized the US military for not taking the measures to secure the museum, a repository for a myriad of valuable ancient artifacts from the ancient Mesopotamian civilization. In the several months leading up to the war, scholars, art directors, and collector met with

8514-454: The view that winning support from local inhabitants was an important break from Napoleon's practices. The great public interest in art repatriation helped fuel the expansion of public museums in Europe and launched museum-funded archaeological explorations. The concept of art and cultural repatriation gained momentum through the latter decades of the twentieth century, and began to show fruition by

8613-485: The wake of widespread destruction of cultural heritage in World War II and is the first international treaty of a worldwide vocation focusing exclusively on the protection of cultural heritage in the event of armed conflict. Irini Stamatoudi suggests that the 1970 UNESCO convention on prohibiting and preventing illicit imports and exports and the 1995 UNIDROIT convention on stolen or illegally exported cultural objects are

8712-403: The wrongs of colonialism is the central tension around the repatriation of Indigenous cultural heritage. The repatriation debate is a term referring to the dialogue between individuals, heritage institutions, and nations who have possession of cultural property and those who pursue its return to its country or community of origin. It is suggested that many points within this debate center around

8811-536: Was a French surrealist painter. Tanguy was the son of a retired navy captain, and was born January 5, 1900, at the Ministry of Naval Affairs on Place de la Concorde in Paris , France. His parents were both of Breton origin. After his father's death in 1908, his mother moved back to her native Locronan , Finistère , and he ended up spending much of his youth living with various relatives. In 1918, Tanguy briefly joined

8910-427: Was a key plot point in the third episode of the second series of BBC Two comedy-drama There She Goes . . Art repatriation Repatriation is the return of the cultural property , often referring to ancient or looted art , to their country of origin or former owners (or their heirs). The disputed cultural property items are physical artifacts of a group or society taken by another group, usually in

9009-478: Was an important influence on several younger painters, such as Roberto Matta , Wolfgang Paalen , Toyen , and Esteban Francés , who adopted a Surrealist style in the 1930s. Later, Tanguy's paintings (and, less directly, those of de Chirico) influenced the style of the 1980 French animated movie Le Roi et l'oiseau , by Paul Grimault and Prévert. Tanguy’s works also influenced the science fiction cover art of illustrator Richard Powers . Tanguy's The Invisibles

9108-549: Was confiscations of artworks and precious objects by the French army or officials After Napoleon's defeat, some looted artworks were returned to their country of origin, according the Treaty of Paris , among them the Horses of Saint Mark , repatriated to Venice. In the early 21st century, debates about the colonial context of acquisitions by Western collections have centered both around arguments against and in favor of repatriations. Since

9207-578: Was confiscations of artworks and precious objects by the French army, or officials, in the territories of the First French Empire , including the Italian peninsula , Spain, Portugal, the Low Countries , and Central Europe. The scale of plundering was unprecedented in modern history, the only comparable looting expeditions taking place in ancient Roman history. In fact, the French revolutionaries justified

9306-742: Was cremated and his ashes preserved until Sage's death in 1963. Later, his ashes were scattered by his friend Pierre Matisse on the beach at Douarnenez in his beloved Brittany , together with those of his wife. Tanguy's paintings have a unique, immediately recognizable style of nonrepresentational surrealism. They show vast, abstract landscapes, mostly in a tightly limited palette of colors, only occasionally showing flashes of contrasting color accents. Typically, these alien landscapes are populated with various abstract shapes, sometimes angular and sharp as shards of glass, sometimes with an intriguingly organic look to them, like giant amoebae suddenly turned to stone. According to Nathalia Brodskaïa, Mama, Papa

9405-458: Was extraordinary. Moreover, the British paid for the restitution of the papal collection to Rome because the Pope could not finance the shipping himself. When British troops began packing up looted art from the Louvre, there was a public outcry in France. Crowds reportedly tried to prevent the taking of the Horses of Saint Mark and there were throngs of weeping ladies outside the Louvre Museum. Despite

9504-462: Was president of the Menil Collection and Foundation starting in 1998, following the death of Dominique de Menil. She has since become one of the museum's largest donors. The Board of Trustees includes, among others, Suzanne Deal Booth . The museum's first director was Walter Hopps . Before joining the Menil Collection as director in 1983, he had worked with Mrs. de Menil on planning the museum and its program. Between 1999 and 2003, Ned Rifkin served as

9603-405: Was selected to design it after winning a competition that also included David Chipperfield , SANAA and Tatiana Bilbao. Rhode Island–based Gilbane Building Company , a subsidiary of Gilbane, Inc. , was selected as the general contractor. The $ 40-million building, with a total of 30,000 square feet (2,800 square metres) on two floors, one of them below ground, is located near the southern edge of

9702-485: Was the earliest and perhaps most important stolen statue in western literature. The small carved wooden statue of an armed Athena served as Troy's protective talisman , which is said to have been stolen by two Greeks who secretly smuggled the statue out of the Temple of Athena. It was widely believed in antiquity that the conquest of Troy was only possible because the city had lost its protective talisman. This myth illustrates

9801-421: Was used to resist colonialism and racism under the guise of evolution. While it is true that both colonialist and nationalist discourse use the artifact to form mechanisms to sustain their contending political agendas, there is a danger in viewing them interchangeably since the latter was a reaction and form of resistance to the former. On the other hand, it is important to realize that in the process of emulating

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