My friend Ed got to know the Schlumbergers when his Harvard chum married one of them. They own much of the world’s art. They held a masque ball where their children were taught the tricks of the trade.
“Be invisble!”
Jon Presco
Two Fridays ago, as the Honorary Ball Committee, President and Mrs. Jimmy Carter, The Honorable and Mrs. James A. Baker III, Madame Danielle Mitterrand, Madame Claude Pompidou, His Excellency the Ambassador of France and Madame Jean-David Levitte, and Renzo Piano invited patrons, supporters, and guests to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Menil Collection, with a masked ball.
Family members on hand included Christophe de Menil, who invited this writer as one of her dinner guests, and who designed her family members’ masks, drawing inspiration from works in the collection by Matisse, Warhol, and Northwest Coast totems; Adelaide de Menil, who wore a Christophe de Menil gown; Susan and François de Menil; Joy de Menil, a senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly; Benjamin de Menil, founder of Iaso Records; and Victoria de Menil, of London.
Global leaders struggle to calm recession fears
By GABRIELE STEINHAUSER, Associated Press – 2 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The world’s major economic powers are pledging to launch a bold effort to deal with a chronic slowdown in growth and a European debt crisis threatening to push the global economy into another recession. But it was unclear whether their strong words would be backed up by equally strong actions.
The statement by the Group of 20 major economies was issued late Thursday and pledged that the countries, which represent 85 percent of the global economy, would do what was necessary to restore financial stability and clam financial markets which had plunged on Thursday over renewed fears of a global downturn.
The finance officials of traditional economic powers such as the United States, Japan and Germany and major emerging nations such as China, Brazil and India were seeking to demonstrate strong resolve in the hope that it will calm jitters that had sent financial markets down sharply. The United States was represented in the discussions by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.
“We are taking strong actions to maintain financial stability, restore confidence and support growth,” the G-20 joint statement said. “We commit to take all actions to preserve the stability of banking systems and financial markets as required.”
The G-20 group had not been scheduled to issue a statement after their working dinner but the turmoil on Thursday in global markets resulted in a change in plans. The group issued a one-page document that they hoped would demonstrate sufficient resolve.
The statement did little to reassure anxious investors. European markets showed modest losses on Friday while Wall Street was set to open slightly higher. In Asia, traders continued to dump stocks amid growing fears of a new global recession.
French Finance Minister Francoise Baroin told reporters the statement represented a “strong global” response to what he called a “very serious situation.”
The statement was issued in advance of the start Friday of the annual meetings of the 187-nation International Monetary Fund and its sister lending organization, the World Bank. The discussions, which will wrap up on Saturday, have been dominated by the European debt crisis.
A senior U.S. Treasury official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door discussions said that all the G-20 countries felt there was a sense of urgency to take strong actions to deal with the financial market turmoil.
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–U.S. stock futures dropped Friday morning in what’s expected to be another volatile session, as fears of a Greek default and the U.S. economy spiraling into another recession continued fueling investor trepidation.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures reversed overnight gains and recently dropped 38 points, or 0.4%, to 10612, although futures recently moved well off earlier lows. The Dow has plunged 675 points in the last two sessions and is on pace for its worst weekly drop since the depths of the financial crisis in October 2008.
Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index futures lost 4 points, or 0.3%, to 1120 and Nasdaq 100 futures declined 5 points, or 0.2%, to 2170. Changes in stock futures don’t always accurately predict stock moves after the opening bell.
Increasing fears of a global economic slowdown and the markets’ strong downside momentum overshadowed the assertion by officials of the G-20 economies that they are committed to keeping the financial system stable and to shore up growth.
There’s a growing sense among investors that governments and central banks will be unable to get growth back on track. The Federal Reserve’s gloomy economic outlook has alarmed investors and resulted in a steep selloff from stocks to corporate bonds to foreign currencies, gold and oil.
“Everything is selling off,” said Michael Gayed, chief investment strategist at Pension Partners. “The reaction here is a bursting of the bubble in the face of the Fed. No matter what the Fed does, it’s not going to make a difference this time around.”
In overseas markets, Europe erased early gains to turn broadly lower, with the Stoxx Europe 600 losing 1.8% to its lowest level seen in more than two years. Asian bourses also fell, with China’s Shanghai Composite hitting a 14-month low in intraday trading.
Gold futures fell 3% and dropped below $1,700 an ounce. Crude-oil futures slid 1.8% to $79 a barrel. The U.S. dollar was down against the euro and the yen.
No major economic data were scheduled for release Friday. Investors will be attuned to any news out of a meeting of the G-20 finance ministers and central bank governors.
In corporate news, Nike’s fiscal first-quarter earnings rose 15% on continued sales strength in the key North American market as well as emerging markets. The athletic-footwear maker’s stock rose 5.2% in premarket trading.
Dow component McDonald’s raised its quarterly cash dividend by 15% to 70 cents a share. The fast-food giant’s shares edged down 0.1% ahead of the open.
Elsewhere, American Medical Alert soared 47% after the provider of remote health-monitoring services said it agreed to be acquired by Tunstall Healthcare Group for $8.55 a share in cash, or about a 50% premium to Thursday’s closing price.
Tibco Software’s fiscal third-quarter profit rose 36% as the business-software company posted sales growth in both of its main businesses. Shares rose 3.9%.
-By Steven Russolillo and Tomi Kilgore, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2180; steven.russolillo@dowjones.com
Houston —It began in a storied architectural icon, and, last week, the story came full circle, in a modern architectural landmark all its own. Jean de Menil and Dominique Schlumberger met, in 1930, at a dance held at Versailles. He was an ambitious banker from a military family; and she, the daughter of Conrad Schlumberger, the entrepreneurial scientist who built the worldwide oil company Schlumberger, Ltd.
By 1931, the couple had married and settled together in the noble 7th arrondissement of Paris. During the Second World War, the family, including two daughters, Christophe and Adelaide, moved around France, escaping the advancing German troops. Jean left the country and eventually found himself in Houston, Texas, where Schlumberger’s American headquarters were located. He would take over American operations for the company, and his wife and their three children (Georges, the couple’s third, meanwhile was born in France) would join him by the early 1940s.
The family grew (another son, François, and daughter, Philippa, were born in America), and Houston became their new home. Jean anglicized his name to John, and the de Menils commissioned a young architect to build a new home for them. John and Dominique’s new residence in the River Oaks section of town was Phillip Johnson’s first commission, and the result was one of the first International Style residences in the state of Texas.
The house was filled with the art that John and Dominique had begun to pursue with a passion – their collection that would grow to include more than 15,000 paintings, sculptures, objets, prints, drawings, photographs, and rare books. European artists dominated the collection, from Surrealist artists such as Max Ernst, René Magritte, Man Ray, and Giorgio de Chirico, to Cubist and School of Paris painters like Léger, Matisse, and Picasso.
By the 1960s though, American, Pop Art, and Minimalist artists were being acquired, from Jasper Johns to Andy Warhol and the de Menil residence had become the salon of Houston, often filled with visiting artists, intellectuals, scientists, and civil-rights leaders. (John and Dominique were as dedicated to Houston’s art scene as they were to progressive politics.)
The de Menils cultivated friendships with many of the artists who visited their home, and they expanded their own influence by donating to universities and art institutions in Houston, including the Contemporary Arts Museum and Rice University, where they founded the Institute of the Arts.
When John de Menil died, in 1973, it appeared as if the couple’s plans for erecting a space to house their collection — which by then had become one of the most significant of the twentieth century, spanning works from the Paleolithic era to the present — died with him. Dominique’s quiet intelligence seemed to sink her into even more of a reserved life than usual. However, years later, now Houston’s self-styled matron of the arts, she resolved to finish the plans that she and her husband had begun to lay at the time of his death.
She wanted a building that seemed “large on the inside but small on the outside,” with spacious interiors and design elements reminiscent of their home — dark floors, large windows, atrium gardens, and art at eye level. In 1980 she began working with Renzo Piano, who designed a museum in human scale, with an unimposing exterior of glass, steel, and calming gray cypress siding. Architecturally imaginative ceilings combined louvers and skylights to modulate the intense sun, while expansive windows allowed abundant natural light to flood the interiors. The effect was to create a simple, harmonious interaction with the collection, but not to compete with it.
In 1987, the Menil Collection opened to the public. It is a vast, rotating repository of four areas—Antiquity, Byzantine and Medieval, Tribal, and Twentieth Century Art (with a concentration in Surrealism)—and it remains free to the public to this day, along with the neighboring de Menil institutions, the Cy Twombly Gallery, the Rothko Chapel, and the Byzantine Fresco Chapel Museum.
The dinner tent on the front lawn
Two Fridays ago, as the Honorary Ball Committee, President and Mrs. Jimmy Carter, The Honorable and Mrs. James A. Baker III, Madame Danielle Mitterrand, Madame Claude Pompidou, His Excellency the Ambassador of France and Madame Jean-David Levitte, and Renzo Piano invited patrons, supporters, and guests to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Menil Collection, with a masked ball.
Family members on hand included Christophe de Menil, who invited this writer as one of her dinner guests, and who designed her family members’ masks, drawing inspiration from works in the collection by Matisse, Warhol, and Northwest Coast totems; Adelaide de Menil, who wore a Christophe de Menil gown; Susan and François de Menil; Joy de Menil, a senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly; Benjamin de Menil, founder of Iaso Records; and Victoria de Menil, of London.
Co-chairs Janet Hobby, Louisa Stude Sarofim, Leslie Elkins Sasser, and Marcy Taub Wessel gathered on the grounds of the Menil to greet guests, who included: Lois Chiles and Richard Gilder; Lynn and Oscar Wyatt; Hermès C.E.O. Robert Chavez; Menil Director Josef Helfenstein and Dorothee Helfenstein; Fayez Sarofim; Carl Palazzolo; Susie and Sanford Criner; Mel Chin; Janie C. Lee and David Warren; August Uribe; Bob and Gracie Cavnar; Frances Farenthold; Bertrand Davezac, in from Paris; Franklin Sirmans, the Menil’s new curator of modern and contemporary art; Rick Lowe; Nina and Michael Zilkha; Nick Flynn; and Dickie Landry.
Cocktails and the opening of a silent auction were followed by dinner, which was held under a tent on the front lawn. The band Chic featuring Nile Rodgers performed, drawing a large majority of guests to the dance floor. Close to the stage, Susan and François de Menil took to the floor. Toward the back, but directly in front of Christophe and Adelaide, Joy, Benjamin, and Victoria de Menil moved with smiles on their faces to live renditions of the songs made popular by Rodgers during the time of their grandmother’s realization of the Menil: “Le Freak (C’est Chic),” “Upside Down,” “I’m Coming Out.” The dance may have changed, and Renzo Piano’s glass windows might have replaced the gilt of Versailles, but on an unusually humid-free night in Houston, there was a sparkle among de Menils, and a sense of their history and their family future.
Rosamond Press 
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