Dia Art Foundation is a non-profit organization

Non-profit organization

Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

 that initiates, supports, presents, and preserves art projects. It was established in 1974 as the Lone Star Foundation by Philippa de Menil, the daughter of Houston arts patron Dominique de Menil

Dominique de Menil

Dominique de Menil was a French-American art collector, philanthropist, founder of the Menil Collection and an heiress to the Schlumberger Limited oil-equipment fortune...

 and an heiress to the Schlumberger

Schlumberger

Schlumberger Limited is the world's largest oilfield services company. Schlumberger employs over 110,000 people of more than 140 nationalities working in approximately 80 countries...

oil exploration fortune, and art dealer Heiner Friedrich, Philippa's husband; the couple wanted to support projects "whose nature or scale would preclude other funding sources." The name “Dia,” taken from the Greek word meaning “through,” was chosen to suggest the institution’s role in enabling artistic projects that might not otherwise be realized.

Dia holds a major collection of work by artists of the 1960s and 1970s, on view at