John de Ménil
| John de Menil | |
|---|---|
John de Menil with Andy Warhol, Montreal, 1968
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| Born |
January 4, 1904 Paris, France |
| Died | June 1, 1973 (aged 69) Houston, Texas |
| Spouse(s) | Dominique de Menil |
John de Ménil (January 4, 1904 — June 1, 1973) was an American businessman, philanthropist, and art patron. He was the founding president of the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR) in New York. With his wife, Dominique de Menil, he established the Menil Collection, a free museum designed by Renzo Piano and built in 1986 to preserve and protect their world-class contemporary art collection.
John de Ménil was born Baron Jean Marie Joseph Menu du Ménil in Paris, France. After emigrating to the United States during WWII, he began using the name 'John Menu de Ménil' which is an anglicized version of 'Jean Menu du Ménil'. Over time he stopped using the 'Menu' portion of his surname and began using shortened forms of the surname such as 'de Ménil' or 'Deménil'. John's children also usually spell their surname as 'de Ménil' (sometimes they use the form 'Deménil'). After becoming a U. S. citizen in 1962, John officially changed his first name from 'Jean' to 'John'.
John was a son of Baron Georges-Auguste-Emmanuel Menu du Ménil (April 20, 1863 - 1947) and Marie-Madeleine Rougier (1866-1929). The Menu du Ménil family was a French Catholic family, many of whose male members had held high positions in the French military. The title of 'Baron' (baron de l'empire), which John inherited from his father, had been bestowed on John's great-great-grandfather Paul-Alexis-Joseph Menu du Ménil (July 17, 1764 - December 30, 1834) on September 11, 1813 by Napoleon Bonaparte. In the 1920s John earned a degree in political science from Sciences Po (Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris) and a degree in law from the Faculté de droit de l’Université de Paris.
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