Helfenstein’s mark

Menil director leaves an outstanding legacy and a blueprint for the museum’s future.

For the past 12 years, Josef Helfenstein, the director of the Menil, honored the museum’s founders, John and Dominque de Menil, by serving as a good steward of their extraordinary legacy to Houston. He accomplished this by moving the Menil in a new direction without straying from its mission.

Helfenstein raised our city’s profile in the global art world while strengthening the museum’s ties to our community. Helfenstein has a strong record of acquiring art works for the museum during his tenure, but few directors can match his achievement of almost doubling attendance while keeping admission free.

Upon his departure at the end of this year, Helfenstein will leave Houston to become director of the Kunstmuseum Basel in his native Switzerland.

Helfenstein presided over the transition of the Menil from a private foundation dependent on a few donors to a public institution with a strong and enlarged board now led by Janet Hobby. With Helfenstein at the helm of the museum, the Menil has begun to implement a long-range plan to expand and enhance the Menil campus.

In March, the Menil broke ground on the only free-standing facility in the U.S. dedicated to the study, conservation and exhibition of modern and contemporary drawings. Like its founders, the museum bearing their name is not showy or pretentious. So, too, the new Menil Drawing Institute is designed to fit in with its neighborhood.

Much of what the Menil offers does exist outside its famous gray clapboards. The museum’s assets include not only paintings of landscape, but landscaped grounds attractive to those who picnic, practice yoga and just hang out, and it’s fitting that the museum’s redevelopment includes a new park.

All Houstonians are grateful for the services and research at the city’s great Texas Medical Center. Imagine, however, how employees and patients and visitors would feel if the medical center’s original planning had incorporated more green space. The Menil teaches visitors about great art, but also serves as a living lesson to other museums and nonprofit organizations and their patrons concerning the importance of setting and neighborhood.

Helfenstein leaves large shoes to fill, and the volunteer search committee, headed by Mark Wawro, has a tough job ahead. The new director should be someone who can balance continuity and change. He or she should be up to the task of leaving a mark on the global art world, along with Houston and Montrose.