Join us at the Menil Collection and enjoy upcoming programs in May.
🖼️ Member Noontime Talk: The Surrealism Galleries with Natalie Dupêcher, Fri., May 1, 12–12:30 p.m.
📽️ BYOB (Bring Your Own Beamer), Sat., May 2, 8:30–10:30 p.m.
🎤 Lecture: Drawing as Technology, Thurs., May 7, 7–8 p.m.
📜 The Watchful Eye: WITS Young Writers Reading, Fri., May 15, 7–8 p.m.
🎤 Artist Talk: Sam Durant, Thurs., May 21, 7–8 p.m.
🎤 Member Noontime Talk: Mesoamerican Whistles in the Collection with Victoria Nerey, Fri., May 22, 12–12:30 p.m.
💬 Panel Discussion: Unruly Lines: The Legacy of the Hairy Who, Thurs., May 28, 7–8 p.m.
Visit the link in bio for more details. The Menil's public programs are always free and open to all.
To attend special member events, join at menil.org/membership.
In the Menil Collection’s Byzantine gallery, see an early 16th century tapestry now on view for the first time since 1994.
Sometimes called “The Triumph of Knowledge,” the tapestry shows two contrasting stories. On the left, a young couple hammers out an armillary sphere, a mathematical instrument demonstrating celestial bodies’ movements around a stationary Earth. In the center, a scholar and an elderly woman—representing Will and Memory—shake the alphabet through a sieve for a man representing Understanding to gather.
🎨 Tapestry Depicting Action and Contemplation, early 16th century. Late Medieval or Early Renaissance. France. Dye, wool, and silk, 117 × 98 in. (297.2 × 248.9 cm). The Menil Collection, Houston.
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Explore the Menil Collection's gallery dedicated to art of the Pacific Islands.
Masks, figural sculptures, architectural elements, and musical instruments are among the museum's holdings of more than 300 works from the Pacific Islands, primarily the regions of Melanesia and Polynesia. Visit the gallery in the Menil's main building—admission is always free.
📸 Daniel Ortiz, Paul Hester
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As early as the 1960s, John and Dominique de Menil supported artists who charted their own paths, collecting works by so-called outlier, visionary, or untrained artists.
See a new installation of paintings and assemblage sculptures by self-taught artists from the southern United States—including Hawkins Bolden, David Butler, and Bessie Harvey—on view in the main building’s hallway gallery.
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Originating in West Mexico, this seated male funerary figure dates from 100 BCE–400 CE. The elaborate headdress and painted patterns along the torso—which may be clothing, tattoos, or body paint—denote him as an important individual.
Ceramic objects from West Mexico frequently figure in the work of 20th century Mexican artists. Making these connections to Indigenous cultures, these artists engaged in local histories and traditions as opposed to foreign ones.
See this sculpture in the Menil Collection's main building, among a rotating selection of visual culture from the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, including Mesoamerica, the Pacific Northwest, and the Arctic.
🎨 Seated Male Funerary Figure (detail), 100 BCE–400 CE. Mexico, Jalisco, or Nayarit. Ceramic and paint, 26 5/8 × 10 1/2 × 11 in. (67.6 × 26.7 × 27.9 cm). The Menil Collection, Houston. Photo: Thomas R. DuBrock
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Cy Twombly was born on this day in 1928.
Visit the Menil Drawing Institute to see "The Gift of Drawing: Cy Twombly," which presents a selection of 27 works from a gift to the Menil by the Cy Twombly Foundation. The show highlights Twombly's talents as a draftsperson who pushed the boundaries of mark-making and explored the relationship between drawing and writing.
This exhibition builds on the Menil's decades-long dedication to Twombly's art, reflected in the museum's landmark Cy Twombly Gallery and its significant holdings already in the permanent collection.
📸 Paul Hester
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Today is Earth Day 🌎 and Friday is Arbor Day. 🌳
Spend time in the green spaces across the Menil Collection’s 30-acre campus. From the canopy trees to the open lawns, each plant plays a role in improving air quality and alleviating heat stress in the surrounding neighborhood.
The Menil’s green spaces are open daily, dawn to dusk.
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