Commentary: Nasher sculpture center to open in Dallas

DALLAS, Oct. 14 (UPI) -- Art collector and philanthropist Raymond Nasher's world-renowned collection of modern and contemporary sculpture will go on public display Monday in a unique indoor-and-outdoor $70-million center he built on a full block in downtown Dallas.

The Nasher Sculpture Center, located adjacent to the Dallas Museum of Art and the Meyerson Symphony Center in the Dallas Arts District, will display what experts say is the best private collection of modern and contemporary sculpture in the world.

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"It is a dream come true," Nasher said Tuesday as the staff prepared for the formal opening next week.

Nasher and his late wife Patsy amassed the $400-million collection over 50 years traveling to all parts of the world. The 300 works date from the late 1800s and include works by Auguste Rodin, Edgar Degas, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Henry Moore.

Six years ago Nasher announced that his family would put the collection on display in Dallas, shunning offers from such prestigious suitors as the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

"It was an opportunity to share our good fortune with our citizens here in Dallas and then with those around the world," said the millionaire real estate developer and banker.

Dallas had been bidding for the collection for years but could offer only $15.6 million to build a museum and garden. In the end, Nasher decided to finance the project himself through a family foundation and retain ownership of collection.

Nasher, who pioneered the use of art in commercial ventures such as his NorthPark Center in Dallas, went out and found two of the best architects in the world to design the 55,000-square-foot building and the half-acre sculpture garden.

Renzo Piano, who designed the Beyeler Museum in Switzerland and the Pompidou center in Paris, created the Nasher building with Italian travertine stone and a barrel-vaulted glass ceiling. Peter Walker, a veteran landscape architect with 40 years experience, laid out the garden with 170 native Texas trees, pools, and fountains.

The Nasher center will be the first institution in the world dedicated exclusively to the exhibition of modern and contemporary sculpture with a world-renowned collection as its foundation, according to Nasher Director Steven Nash.

"As the first institution of its kind, we are carefully developing a program that will build upon our mission of exhibitions, study and conservation of modern sculpture," he said. "Collaborating with arts institutions and universities in the United States and worldwide, our goal is to create a dynamic environment that serves all audiences."

The inaugural exhibition of the Nasher's 300 sculptures, "From Rodin to Calder: Masterworks of Modern Sculpture from the Nasher Collection," will showcase 25 large-scale works in the garden and 70 pieces in the interior galleries.

Several of the works have never or rarely been on public view before, including Picasso's "Head of a Woman," James Turrell's "Tending, (Blue)," "The Serf" by Henri Matisse, "The Flesh of Others" by Medardo Rosso, and Alberto Giacometti's "Standing Figure."

The Nasher center will also present a broad scope of public programs, including exhibitions organized by the institution and major touring exhibitions as well as scholarly, educational and outreach programs and performing arts presentations.

Pieces of the Nasher collection have been exhibited in the past at museums such as the National Gallery of Art in Washington; Madrid's Centro de Arte Reina Sofia; Forte de Belvedere in Florence, Italy; Israel's Tel Aviv Museum of Art; the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York; and the Dallas Museum of Art.