The Menil Collection: A Selection from the Paleolithic to the Modern Era

The Menil Collection: A Selection from the Paleolithic to the Modern Era presents works of art from the extraordinary private collection of Dominique and John de Menil, which was assembled over the last forty years. This book, and the new museum built to house the collection in Houston, Texas, for the first time make available to the public the content of The Menil Collection. The nearly 250 works shown here in color reproductions are, of course, only a fraction of the collection's 10,000 items that include paintings, drawings, prints and photographs, rare books, sculpture, and precious objects. The Collection has particular concentration in four areas: antiquities from the European, Mediterranean, and Near Eastern worlds, such as the paleolithic Bone with Incised Reindeer, and the Violin Idol from the Cycladic Islands, Greece; Byzantine objects, such as the magnificent gold reliquary; art of tribal cultures, particularly African art but also artifacts from Oceania and the Americas, including headdresses and figures from Mali and Nigeria, effigies and masks from Polynesia and Melanesia, and a splendid Curtain with Thunderbird and Whale (Nitinat people) from western Canada; and modern art.