John de Menil

John de Ménil (January 4, 1904 – June 1, 1973) was a Franco-American businessman, philanthropist, and art patron. He was the founding president of the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR) in New York. With his wife, Dominique de Menil, he established the Menil Collection, a free museum designed by Renzo Piano and built in 1986 to preserve and exhibit their world-class contemporary art collection. Life De Ménil was born Baron Jean Marie Joseph Menu de Ménil in Paris. After emigrating to the United States during World War II, he began using the name 'John Menu de Ménil' which is an anglicized version of 'Jean Menu de Ménil'. Over time he stopped using the 'Menu' portion of his surname and began using shortened forms of the surname such as 'de Ménil' or 'Deménil'. John's children also usually spell their surname as 'de Ménil' (sometimes they use the form 'Deménil'). After becoming a U. S. citizen in 1962, de Ménil officially changed his first name from 'Jean' to 'John'. De Ménil was a son of Baron Georges-Auguste-Emmanuel Menu de Ménil (April 20, 1863 – 1947) and Marie-Madeleine Rougier (1866 – 1929). The Menu de Ménil family was a French Catholic family, many of whose men had been officers in the French military. The title of Baron, which de Ménil inherited from his father, had been bestowed on John's great-great-grandfather Paul-Alexis-Joseph Menu de Ménil (July 17, 1764 – December 30, 1834) on September 11, 1813 by Napoleon Bonaparte – thus making him a 'baron de l'empire'. In the 1920s de Ménil earned a degree in political science from Sciences Po (Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris) and a degree in law from the Faculté de droit de l'Université de Paris.