People who haven't been to Houston or who don't know much about it would assume that we don't have great art. But we do! We really do! The Menil Collection is one of my favorite places to go to when I come home to Houston. In a beautiful building designed by Renzo Piano and situated in the middle of a quiet little Houston neighborhood, the Menil Collection is a haven for art lovers in Houston. It includes some incredible pieces of Byzantine, African and modern / contemporary art. I've visited the Menil over a dozen times and can't seem to tire from the pieces by Warhol, Picasso, Basquiat, Yves Klein, Barnett Newman, Rauschenberg, Matisse, Pollock, Koonig, Jasper Johns - the list goes on and on. While it's not a huge collection, the way the museum is curated in a building that uses natural lighting in the most divine way really maximizes the value of each piece.

The Menil website is ehh, so-so, could be better, but just for the Collection itself, I have to give it the most love I can.

As a note: Within blocks of the Menil are the Rothko Chapel, the Byzantine Fresco Chapel and the Cy Twombly building (but the Twombly is a whole other story that I'll write another day).

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K D. Will add Menil to long, long list of collections to visit sometime...

3/7/11  •  Votes (0)

T N. Houston has some great galleries / museums - our Museum of Fine Arts is quite nice, our Contemporary Art Museum is small but interesting. If you go to Houston you could also enjoy a lot of good Asian food - our Chinatown is the size of a small city. The Vietnamese food beats that of any city in the U.S., hands down.

3/7/11  •  Votes (0)