DALLAS, TEXAS.- The Nasher Sculpture Center, which opened on October 20, 2003, will be the first institution in the world dedicated exclusively to the exhibition of modern and contemporary sculpture with a collection of global significance as its foundation.  The Nasher Sculpture Center is further distinguished by a groundbreaking facility and landscaped garden specifically designed for the indoor and outdoor display of sculpture.  Conceived by collector and philanthropist Raymond D. Nasher in consultation with museum professionals and scholars, the $70 million Center will occupy a full city block in downtown Dallas, in the heart of the city’s growing Arts District.

The Nasher Sculpture Center features a new 54,000-square-foot-building and one and a half-acre sculpture garden designed by architect Renzo Piano in collaboration with landscape architect Peter Walker.  The Center will provide a public home for the presentation of the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection, one of the foremost collections of modern sculpture in public or private hands and comprised of more than 300 sculptures dating from the late 19th century to the present. 

"The Nasher Sculpture Center is the first institution to place modern and contemporary sculpture at the center of attention, with the collection, resources, and facilities to support such a focus," says Mr. Nasher.  "Our goal in creating this institution is to concurrently foster the public enjoyment of sculpture and advance study in the field, two things very important to me and my late wife Patsy."

Distinguished by its remarkable range and depth, the Nasher Collection features work by 19th-century masters such as Auguste Rodin, Edgar Degas, and Paul Gauguin, to that of contemporary artists including Richard Serra and Mark di Suvero.  Particularly notable are the comprehensive representations of seminal works by Pablo Picasso (seven sculptures), Henri Matisse (11), Alberto Giacometti (13), Henry Moore (eight), Joan Miró (four), and David Smith (eight), as well as less renowned, yet highly inventive sculptors, such as Medardo Rosso, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, and Willem de Kooning.

Drawing on the breadth and continued growth of the Nasher Collection, installations in the Nasher Sculpture Center’s galleries and gardens will be rotated periodically.  The Center will also present a broad scope of public programming, including exhibitions organized by the institution and major touring exhibitions, as well as educational outreach programs and performing arts presentations.

"As the first institution of its kind, we are carefully developing a program that will build upon and complement existing research activities," remarks Dr. Steven Nash, Director of the Nasher Sculpture Center.  "Collaborating with arts institutions and universities in the U.S. and worldwide, our goal is to create a dynamic environment that serves all audiences."
 
Located in the heart of the downtown Arts District, the Nasher Sculpture Center will occupy a 2.4-acre site adjacent to the Dallas Museum of Art and the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center.  The collaborative relationship between the Center and neighboring institutions will be a model for collection-sharing and programmatic partnerships between arts organizations.  The Dallas Museum of Art’s outstanding holdings of modern and contemporary art, and encyclopedic permanent collection, will complement and provide context for the Nasher Collection.  The Center has already collaborated with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra on the three-year loan of Proverb, by Mark di Suvero.  The 60-foot-high red steel sculpture, installed next to the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, creates a prominent gateway to the Dallas Arts District.

The Building and Garden - The main floor of the 54,000-square-foot building is divided into five equal-sized, parallel pavilions.  The side walls are clad in two-inch wide slabs of Italian travertine, entirely concealing the facility’s environmental and security systems and providing a quiet setting for the presentation of sculpture.  The facades at each end are fabricated from clear glass, allowing the pavilions to visually extend into the garden and creating a seamless continuity between the Center’s indoor and outdoor spaces.  A unique barrel-vaulted glass ceiling is suspended above the galleries, atop narrow steel ribs and supported by thin, stainless steel rods.  An innovative cast aluminum sunscreen, specifically designed for this project, will float above the roof and allow controlled natural light to filter into the galleries, eliminating the need for artificial illumination much of the time.

The three central pavilions on the main floor will serve as galleries for the display of smaller and environmentally-sensitive sculptures, as well as related paintings, prints, and drawings from the Nasher Collection.  The two outer pavilions will house a café and store, while the lower level will include a smaller gallery for the display of light-sensitive works, a conservation lab, educational and research facilities, and an auditorium that opens to an outdoor terraced garden.

In addition to more than 10,000 square feet of indoor gallery space, the one and a half-acre sculpture garden will feature settings that frame the outdoor works.  More than 170 trees, including cedar elms, live oaks, and magnolias, together with stone pathways, pools, and fountains, will define intimate landscapes for quiet reflection and contemplation of works, and create a verdant oasis in downtown Dallas.  Approximately 25 large-scale sculptures from the Nasher Collection will be on view in the garden at any one time.  Tending, (Blue) by James Turrell, is the only site-specific work commissioned as part of the sculpture garden.  Turrell’s free-standing "skyspace" will be situated at the north end of the garden, partially recessed in a landscaped berm.

The Collection - Developed over more than five decades, Raymond Nasher and his late wife Patsy began collecting art in 1950 and together formed one of the finest collections of 20th-century sculpture in the world.  The Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection includes masterpieces by Calder, de Kooning, di Suvero, Giacometti, Hepworth, Kelly, Matisse, Miró, Moore, Picasso, Rodin, and Serra, among many others, and continues to grow and evolve.  One of the most recent acquisitions is a monumental cement sculpture by Pablo Picasso, Head of a Woman (1958).

The Nasher Collection has been presented in exhibitions at museums such as the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain; Forte di Belvedere, Florence, Italy; Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel; the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, California; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the Dallas Museum of Art.

The Dallas Arts District - The opening of the Nasher Sculpture Center represents a critical moment in the advancement of the Dallas Arts District and establishes a unique cultural and educational resource in Dallas that will attract visitors from around the world.  The new institution will serve as a civic landmark, simultaneously advancing cultural tourism and enhancing the quality of life for local residents.  Additional projects currently underway in the Arts District include the nearby Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, which is planning a renovation and expansion designed by architect Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture, and the Dallas Center for Performing Arts, which is developing a multiform theater designed by architect Rem Koolhaas of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and a 2,400-seat lyric theater designed by London-based Foster and Partners.

Raymond D. Nasher - Raymond D. Nasher was one of the first real estate developers to place art in his commercial complexes.  His first retail shopping center in Dallas, NorthPark Center, was designed with the space necessary to display large-scale sculpture.  Mr. Nasher has also played a leading role in the development and growth of all major arts organizations in Dallas.  He established the Dallas Business Committee for the Arts in 1988 and has served as a board member of the Dallas Museum of Art, The Dallas Opera, The Dallas Symphony, the Dallas Theatre Center, Ballet Dallas, and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.  He has been appointed to the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities by three presidents, and has also served on various committees and councils of numerous museums, including the Guggenheim in New York and the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Steven A. Nash - As the first Director of the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dr. Nash brings more than thirty years of directorial experience to this position.  For fifteen years, Dr. Nash served as Associate Director and Chief Curator at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, where he was involved with development of the new M.H. de Young Memorial Museum plans, as well as with curatorial matters.  Prior to that, from 1980-1988, he served in the roles of Deputy Director and Chief Curator at the Dallas Museum of Art.  In his various museum posts, Dr. Nash has been instrumental in the acquisition of thousands of works of art, from all eras and cultures, and has organized many important exhibitions.  He has also served on teams overseeing the construction of the new M.H. de Young Memorial Museum; an upgraded and expanded California Palace of the Legion of Honor; and the creation of a downtown facility for the Dallas Museum of Art.

Renzo Piano - Renzo Piano, winner of the 1998 Pritzker Prize for Architecture, has designed several critically acclaimed art museums, foremost among them the Beyeler Museum in Basel, the Menil Collection in Houston, and Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris (in collaboration with Richard Rogers).  He has been praised as an architect who has the genius to meld art, architecture, and advanced engineering to create some of the most exciting museums in the world.  In addition to his design for the Nasher Sculpture Center, Mr. Piano’s current projects in the United States include:  expansion of the Art Institute of Chicago; expansion of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta; new facilities for the Morgan Library in New York City; The California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, CA; The New York Times building in New York City; and a master plan for Columbia University.

Peter Walker - Peter Walker, principal of Peter Walker and Partners of Berkeley, California, designed the landscapes at the Federal Triangle in Washington, D.C. (with I.M. Pei Architects); in Disney City in Orlando, Florida; at the Sony Center Berlin (with Murphy/Jahn Architects); and at the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art in Toyota City, Japan.  He also designed the Tanner Fountain at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Library Walk at the University of California at San Diego.  Mr. Walker has also been teaching for more than 40 years and has served as chairman of the Landscape Architecture Department at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and at the University of California at Berkeley.

The Nasher Foundation - The development of the Nasher Sculpture Center, and costs for the acquisition of the land, landscaping, and construction of the facilities, is being fully funded by The Nasher Foundation.  Under the direction of founding Chairman and President Raymond D. Nasher, The Nasher Foundation aims to care for and preserve the Nasher Collection, while enhancing its accessibility to the public.  Other goals of The Foundation include: fostering scholarly research in the interpretation of modern and contemporary sculpture; supporting research studies on the conservation of sculpture; supporting art education programs; and developing other programs, principally in the arts, but also in public policy, medical research, and education.