COLLECTORS WITH PANACHE Love
Affair Raymond Nasher on modern sculpture and other art
that gave him and his late wife butterflies.
By
Diana Mehl
Raymond Nasher with Tony Smith’s Ten Elements.
Nasher Sculpture Center with Mark di Suvero’s
Eviva Amore.
Paul Gauguin, Tahitian Girl, circa 1896,
wood and mixed media.
Auguste Rodin, The Age of Bronze, circa 1876,
plaster.
Edgar Degas, Dancer at Rest, Hands Behind Her
Back, Right Leg Forward, 1892 - 1895, bronze.
Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Large Horse, 1914,
bronze.
Thirty-eight
years ago Patsy Nasher surprised her husband, Dallas real
estate developer Raymond Nasher, on his birthday with the
magnificent Jean Arp bronze sculpture Torso with Buds.
Although the Nashers were already collectors of pre-Columbian
art and some modern artwork, this gift sparked the beginning
of their love affair with modern sculpture that culminated
in their assembly of one of the world’s finest private
collections of modern and contemporary sculpture. Despite
the untimely death of his wife in 1988, Nasher continued
to add to a collection that now encompasses more than 300
pieces and contains masterworks by nearly every great modern
sculptor. The collection is distinguished by its examples
of some of the most important stylistic developments in
the history of sculpture; its works from key artists, including
11 Matisse sculptures, 7 Picassos, 8 David Smiths, 7 Raymond
Duchamp-Villons, 8 Henry Moores, 4 Mirós and 13 Giacomettis;
and its range. The collection contains work of monumental
scale – such as the 100,000-pound Richard Serra My
Curves Are Not Mad – and the miniature Two
Figurines by Alberto Giacometti. Many materials are
used, including bronze, marble, steel and gravel.
Courted for his collection by many of the major museums
in the world, Nasher spent $70 million of his own money
to build a sculpture center that would serve both as a public
home for his art as well as a world center for education
and conservation.
After much consideration, Nasher commissioned Pritzker Prize-winning
architect Renzo Piano to design a 55,000-square-foot building
of travertine marble on 2.4 acres, providing for a 10,000-square-foot
indoor gallery and a one-and-a-half-acre outdoor sculpture
garden. The resulting Nasher Sculpture Center, which opened
in downtown Dallas in 2003, is the ideal pairing of an art
collection and its exhibition space and has received universal
acclaim for its perfect synthesis of magnificent art, inspiring
architectural design, advanced engineering techniques and
thoughtful landscaping. Every consideration has been given
to ensure optimal viewing conditions – from the gallery’s
innovative barrel-vaulted glass roof that provides splendid
natural lighting, to the placement of the artwork that allows
for full 360-degree views, to the felicitous integration
of plantings, pools and fountains in the garden that creates
intimacy and serenity in an urban setting.
In an interview with Panache, Nasher speaks of
his art, the partnership with his late wife and why he chose
Dallas.
Did
your parents shape your interest in the arts?
My parents had a tremendous influence on me. I grew up
in Boston, in Dorchester, MA. My father was part of an
immigrant family from Russia and my mother’s family
came from Germany. They never had the opportunity from
the financial point of view to relate to cultural life,
but they were determined that their only child would be
exposed to everything. The three of us would go to a museum
every month. There are many in Boston. My other grandparents
lived in the Bronx, NY, so we would also go to the Met
in Manhattan.
What
were some of your late wife’s strengths as a collector?
She had an incredible eye and a great background in the
arts. She had studied art at Smith. If she was in a gallery
and there were a dozen pieces by X she could determine
which was the best. We started collecting in the 50s and
60s. She got to be good friends with Andy Warhol and Basquiat.
She would visit with them, talk with them. She collected
everything and she traded with Warhol for her own painting
and that of our three daughters. They are fabulous.
Did
you initially collect pre-Columbian art?
We didn’t have the financial wherewithal to collect
much of anything. When we moved to Dallas we took our
vacations in Mexico. In those days you were able to buy
wonderful Mayan or Aztec art for $20, $30. We collected
pre-Columbian art, which is sculpture, until the UNESCO
treaty stopped the taking of treasures out of the country.
How
did you start to build the sculpture collection?
We were initially interested in building it for our three
daughters. We thought it would be very important for them
to grow up with intellectual and aesthetically beautiful
things. So if we had any extra funds we were determined
to collect art and have it at home. We began with local
artists in Texas, graduating to New York and to other
artists. Sculpture was what we loved. I wanted to put
pieces in our buildings or outside of our buildings. From
a financial point of view, sculpture through the 60s up
until the mid 90s was much less expensive than paintings
from the same artist. A Matisse sculpture might be a tenth
of the price of a Matisse painting. Today they are the
same. At the time we were collecting we had the good fortune
of being able to buy things from great artists.
You
were among the first in the country to place art in commercial
buildings.
When I started building our real estate business I wanted
to marry art and commerce, so we placed art in the office
buildings, shopping centers and banks. The addition of
art into commercial buildings really makes them more comfortable,
exciting and interesting. That has been important from
our point of view. We have been doing it since the 50s.
How
did the decision-making process work between you and your
wife?
We were partners and we did it together. Many times she
would go to the dealers and the artist studios and find
things, then tell me about them. We’d get together
and determine whether it gave us both butterflies. They
were personal things, and we just wanted works of art
that we enjoyed living with.
Did
your criteria change as you built the collection and tried
to make it comprehensive?
As we went up the hill, to the Matisses, Picassos and
Brancusis, we were reaching out to see some of the great
masterpieces of our time. We really kept spending more
of our funds on the collection. But we loved and wanted
to live with everything we purchased. We wouldn’t
buy something because of the name or the nature of the
work.
Did
your daughters – all collectors themselves –
ever influence your choices?
They exposed me to new things. That was important when
thinking about new artists to add to our collection.
What
are some of the highlights of the collection?
We have a number of Mark di Suvero works in all sizes
and scales. One of them is the 47-foot Eviva Amore
and another is In the Bushes, which was on Fifth
Avenue when our collection was at the Guggenheim. David
Smith is such an incredible, important American artist.
We were able to buy from Nelson Rockefeller’s estate
the great wagon (Voltri VI) that’s in the
museum itself. It was part of the Voltri period, and we
have 2 of the 28 Voltri pieces and a number of other Smiths.
Of course, we love Matisse. We have his first major sculpture,
The Serf, which he did in 1900. It was his only male
figure and it really came out of Rodin and Michaelangelo
in regard to figure development. Giacometti is a great
favorite. We have the wonderful No More Play,
a surrealistic board that he did relating to the war,
and Spoon Woman, a piece that was influenced
by African spoon figures as well as his Venetian ladies
(Venice Woman III and Venice Woman IV).
We also have three of his painted bronze busts of Diego
that are just incredibly beautiful – and many others.
Then there is Picasso. Picasso is the beginning of cubism
sculpture starting with his 1909 Head of Fernande,
of which we have the original plaster. We have his Pregnant
Woman, which was basically Francois Gilot. His first
concrete sculpture, Head of a Woman, is in the
garden.
What
are some of your favorite pieces?
They change on a daily basis. On a particular day I might
like a Frank Stella; on another day I enjoy a Matisse
sculpture. We have about eight or ten of those. Each of
them has its own feeling and relationship. In essence
each has an intrinsic beauty predicated on the fact that
the artist created something that was totally new and
innovative and totally within his mind. They are all unique
pieces.
Can
you describe a particularly exciting acquisition?
At one of the great evenings – an auction at Sotheby’s
– there were two Matisse sculptures in the catalog.
One was the Two Negresses. I determined that
we had to have it for our collection. It was such an incredible
piece. The Decorative Figure that he did in 1908
was also in that exhibit. Good fortune had it that we
were able to buy the Two Negresses at a much
lower price than we had anticipated. So I said to my wife,
“Let’s see if we can’t get that Decorative
Figure.” So we bid. That evening we were able
to get the two Matisse pieces and they are truly two of
his masterpieces.
Why
did you choose to place your collection in Dallas?
The museums in New York and Washington were very anxious
to get the collection. After giving it great thought I
felt it was the time to give back to Dallas. It was the
place where we lived and had our offices. We did a lot
of research and found that there is no inner-city sculpture
museum and garden in the world. Sculpture gardens are
usually out in parks, like in Purchase, NY. The most important
one is in Holland, the Kroller-Muller Museum outside of
Amsterdam. My thought was if we could take the collection
and get a great building and garden together within the
inner city, perhaps it could be a local center of modern
sculpture in the world – and that would be important
for the future of Dallas.
Diana
Mehl is the editorial director of Panache.
Photo
Credits
image 1:Courtesy of the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection,
Dallas, TX; Photographer: Stewart Cohen. image 2: Courtesy
of the Nasher Sculpture Center; Photographer: Tim Hursley.
image 3,4,5: Gauguin: Courtesy of RDN and PRN Foundation,
Dallas, TX; Photographer: David Heald. Courtesy of the Raymond
and Patsy Nasher Collection, Dallas, TX; Rodin: Photographer:
David Heald; Degas: Photographer: Tom Jenkins. image 6: Courtesy
of the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection, Dallas, TX; Photographer:
David Heald.
