Easily one of America's foremost modernist museums, Houston's Menil Collection consists of 17,000 objects by some of the leading practitioners of the avant-garde. It could easily overshadow the remarkable couple whose vision made it possible, and so here William Middleton traces the lives of Dominique and John de Menil, French activists who befriended the artists they collected. While the museum is their foremost legacy, the Menils made their Philip Johnson-designed house into an oasis of culture, and as Middleton reveals, they hosted Marlene Dietrich, René Magritte, Andy Warhol, and Jasper Johns.