The Menil Collection

Museum website photo

In the museum: our friend Eleanor (in Green) and Len (at right).

On the second-to-last day of our visit to Texas, we joined our friends Eleanor and Roger, who first gave us a tour of several neighborhoods of the city, and then took us to the Menil Collection, a small but fabulous museum based on the amazing collections of Domenique de Menil (1908-1997). For us a highlight was the large number of works by René Magritte, the Belgian surrealist. The museum owns 54 of his works, though not all of them are on display.

One of the many works by Magritte, a favorite of ours for many years.

The Surrealist Wunderkammer

Surrealism is one of the major themes of the art work in the Menil Collection, and one of the highlights of the museum is a carefully arranged room full of surrealist art along with other types of art that have been beloved by surrealists and their fans. Tribal art, certain works by earlier artists such as Archimbalvo, and various other choices complement the intentions of the surrealist painters of the early 20th century.

A Mickey-Mouse Kachina (museum photo).

Photo of the Wunderkammer (from museum website)

Photo from museum website

We loved the collections of objects that were put together in the “Surrealist Wunderkammer” which could also be called a cabinet of curiosities. When we walked into the room where this collection is displayed, we were strongly reminded of the collection that belonged to the surrealist poet André Breton (1896-1966), and were gratified when we found a mask of his face displayed between two tribal masks in one of the cases in the room. Here’s the official description from the museum website:

“A Surrealist Wunderkammer is a single-gallery exhibition devoted to seeing the world from the perspective of Surrealism, an international art and literary movement started by André Breton, Paul Éluard, and others in France during the 1920s. The gallery presents ethnographic and found ‘surreal’ objects, obsolete photographic and moving image technologies, and other works that informed the thinking of artists affiliated with Surrealism.”

(Source: https://www.menil.org/exhibitions/376-a-surrealist-wunderkammer)

A Special Exhibit: Joe Overstreet

After visiting the Menil collections, we continued by viewing a special exhibit of the work of Joe Overstreet (1933-2019).

Cy Twombly

Finally, we visited the separate building dedicated to the work of Cy Twombly (1928-2011).

One of the Cy Twombly rooms

In the Garden

Broken Obelisk, a sculpture by Barnett Newman in the museum garden

Blog post © 2025 mae sander

Photos are original or as credited to the museum website.