Arts / Museums

Much-Anticipated Menil Drawing Institute’s Opening Date Finally Revealed: Storied Museum’s New $40 Million Building Full of Wonders

BY // 05.01.18

Just in: Fall in Texas will be marked by an architectural milestone — the long-awaited addition to the vaunted campus of The Menil Collection.

The storied museum revealed today that its new $40 million, 30,000 square-foot Menil Drawing Institute will unveil to the public on Saturday, November 3.

The Drawing Institute, which had its opening pushed back from the original fall 2017 date, will become the only such center in the world built expressly for the acquisition, study, conservation, storage, and — most importantly for the public, the exhibition of — modern and contemporary drawings.

Good news for Texas museum goers, and the national and international visitors the Menil has always attracted: thanks to a just-completed $121 million capital campaign, $6 million over its goal, the Menil Drawing Institute as well as the other buildings within the Menil campus will remain free.

Texans are spoiled: We avoid paying hefty admission fees lto major museums such at the MoMA or the Whitney in New York, which top off at $25. In contrast, the Menil, which celebrated 30 years in 2017, has always been free as are Houston’s Contemporary Arts Museum and Blaffer Art Museum, setting up a model that is now followed by the Dallas Museum of Art for general museum admission.

The Menil’s Unparalleled Campus

The Menil Drawing Institute joins a campus marked by four other signature buildings, beginning with Renzo Piano’s first commission in America, the main Menil itself; as well as the Cy Twombly Gallery (Piano’s second commission in the U.S.); a former grocery store turned kunsthalle, Richmond Hall (home to a candy-hued installation of Dan Flavin light sculpture); and the Byzantine Fresco Chapel, designed by the founders’ son Francois de Menil.

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Cited within a 30-acre master-planned museum neighborhood of bungalows and massive live oaks, and an adjoining park, the area also includes the Rothko Chapel, a pilgrimage site for Mark Rothko’s final commission, as well as monument and sacred space for human rights and the activism the de Menils fostered.

To learn more about the patrons behind the museum, check out the just released biography of its founders, Dominique and John de Menil.

Menil Drawing Institute Details

About the Menil Drawing Institute itself — it is expected to draw headlines when it opens this November, both for its architecture as well as contents and mission.

In typical Menil style, its aesthetic is free from boisterous touches of the Baroque. Instead, the new contemplative space whispers with importance.

So don’t expect the twists, contortions, or wild metal perambulations of Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Bilbao.”

Indeed, the restrained Drawing Institute matches the aesthetics and attitude of the Menil campus and the tone set by the original Piano building, itself regarded as one of the world’s most significant architectural works within the past decades.

The architect of the drawing center is not a household name, but a boutique architecture practice from Los Angeles, a smaller-sized firm known in inner circles, but one the broader public may not (yet) have heard of — Johnston Marklee.

One insider in the gallery world has already hailed the Menil Drawing Institute as “an Agnes Martin of a building.”

Scroll through the photo slideshow above this story for a peek at the understated refinement of the building and its corresponding green spaces — including a new park —  designed as a bookend to the building by landscape architects Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, which is based in New York and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Opening Act

Paired with the new building the opening act for the museum presents the drawings of octogenarian American master Jasper Johns, a towering figure of modernism (born 1930), who is a touchstone of the museum collection.

Art historians will also get another perk — the publication of the Menil-funded six-volume catalogue raisonné of Johns’ drawings, concurrent with the exhibition, “The Condition of Being Here: Drawings by Jasper Johns.”

Stay tuned also for two upcoming, pendant stories: The reopening of the main museum itself, closed since late February for updates and refurbishments to its three-decades-old building, especially the well-worn wooden floors.

The main Menil is expected to open weeks in advance of the Drawing Institute to allow visitors to once again bask in its splendors. A special installation of works from the museum’s entire millennia-spanning collection is promised.

The final component to be revealed is who will curate the MDI’s cache of drawings. The new appointment will fill the post vacant since previous chief curator David Breslin was lured to the Whitney in 2016.

Significantly, this plum position now comes with its own building to program.

Mark 2018 as a monumental year for Texas museums. Sunday, May 20, serves as the big reveal for the Glassell School of Art, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and five months later, the Houston Museum District gets the Menil Drawing Institute.

Renderings courtesy of Johnston Marklee / Nephew and / Igor Brozyna.

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