Raymond and Patsy Nasher at NorthPark Construction Site, 1965.
	IN PURSUIT OF THE MASTERS Stories from the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection September 20, 2008 to January 4, 2009 Nasher Sculpture Center 2001 Flora St., Dallas, TX 214.242.5100; nashersculpturecenter.org

Tell me about the show.

This is our fifth anniversary this fall and to celebrate that we decided to put together an exhibition on the collection that is a little bit different from what we've done before. Because our founder Ray Nasher passed away just last year, we wanted to take this opportunity to honor him and his wife Patsy, who passed away in 1988, with an exhibition that shows the personal side of the collection. It lets the public into the joy that they had in putting this collection together and sharing it with the public for the past forty years.

How would you describe the Nashers as collectors?

They were both interested in art very early on. Ray always talked about his parents taking him to the symphony, the opera and various museums when he was growing up in Boston. This instilled in him the idea that the arts are a part of every day life and they should be part of everyone's experience. This really drove him, and I think Patsy felt that as well. She became interested in art in high school and at Smith College. Before she attended college she traveled to Europe and saw many of the great cathedrals and museums and that sparked an interest in the visual arts in particular.

Their collecting was something they really loved doing. They really enjoyed the process of collecting, doing the research and learning as much as they could about the works of art. I didn't know Patsy personally, but everyone talks about how diligent she was in “doing her homework.” So that when a piece did come up she knew how important it was and rare it was and could really act quickly.

In the beginning, Ray was busy with a lot of his business concerns – he was a real estate developer and that commanded his attention for the most part. Patsy really took on the job of being the curator of the collection very early on.

How did the collection evolve?

Their guiding principle was always they bought what they loved. They used to say: “Look at everything but only bring home the things that give us butterflies.” They had to have that immediate visceral reaction to a work of art despite all of the research that they did. When they first began collecting they collected whatever their modest means would allow. They were intrigued by ancient Mexican and pre-Columbian art and would go on trips to Mexico and visit the archeological sites. They built up quite a nice collection of artifacts. Their early experiences with pre-Columbian three-dimensional objects and their experience in real estate development primed them for collecting modern and contemporary sculpture.

While they were collecting pre-Columbian works they started to delve into modern and contemporary American paintings and prints. They bought from and became friends with Edith Halpert, a very famous dealer who owned the Downtown Gallery in New York and who represented artists like Stuart Davis and Max Weber. The Nashers have several works by important American modernists, like Ben Shahn.

Ben Shahn, Tennis Players, Gouache on paper, 15 3/4 x 12 in. Nancy A. Nasher/David J. Haemisegger Collection.

A lot of their initial interest in art ended up growing and expanding as their prospects did as well. In 1965, Ray opened one of the very first climate controlled indoor shopping centers in the country - NorthPark. That broadened their horizons in terms of what they were able to collect. But also, they looked at these broad concourses in the shopping center and thought this would be a wonderful place to expose people to art. So they began collecting fairly large scale outdoor sculpture for their home and for display at NorthPark. It is an incredibly unique experience – you don't walk into many shopping centers and see works by Henry Moore, Frank Stella, George Shapiro, and Mark Di Suvero.

You address the challenges of collecting sculpture and especially large-scale sculpture in the show.

Many people don't realize the difficulty in transporting, installing and caring for very large scale works of art. Sculpture, particularly outdoor sculpture requires a lot of TLC and maintenance. The elements have their effects on things outside and sculpture is no different. That didn't bother the Nashers. They thought it was a great privilege to be the next caretakers of these works. This was at a time when sculpture was not as widely collected. Paintings were more sought after by collectors. It's understandable. It's a lot easier to buy a great painting and hang it on the wall than it is to purchase a 1,000 pound sculpture and install in your house or outside. There are a lot of additional considerations with objects that are so big and weigh so much. The Nashers, with their experience in construction were comfortable with dealing with those kinds of challenges.

We talk about those challenges with a couple of works in the installation. Primary among them is Richard Serra's My Curves Are Not Mad from 1987. This is a sculpture that consists of two Cor-Ten steel plates that are fourteen feet tall, forty- four feet long and just 2 inches wide and each one of them weighs 50,000 pounds. You can imagine what kind of major equipment you need to transport and install these works of art. That didn't scare the Nashers from collecting works like that. What was more important was how great the work of art was and their response to it and the fact that it should be seen by the public.

The exhibition features pieces never shown before at the Sculpture Center. Many had remained at the Nashers' home for their personal significance. Can you describe one of these works?

Jean Arp, Torso with Buds (Nu aux bourgeons), 1961, Bronze, 73 7/8 x 15 1/2 x 15 in. Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection, Dallas, TX.

The exhibition highlights the Nashers' close friendships with the artists whose works they collected. Can you describe one of these relationships?

They had a long friendship with Henry Moore. They first met him in 1967 at his home and studio in a tiny little hamlet called Much Hadham, in England. He showed them what he was working on at the time. He had a pair of stones that he had laid out on a piece of wood and was experimenting with the stones as stand-ins for interlocking shapes. The Nashers were fascinated with his incorporation of natural forms. The following year, after a receiving a call from Moore, they went back out, saw it, and bought it immediately. It was one of the first outdoor sculptures to come into the collection. This sculpture ended up being the basis for a much larger composition that Moore did for the plaza in front of the Dallas City Hall. The Nashers were there at the inception of that idea and continued to carry on a relationship with the artist.

He once came for dinner and was taken by a basket mask from New Guinea that the Nashers had. He borrowed a piece of paper and a pencil and sketched it out, took that sketch home, elaborated on it and ended up sending them a lithograph of the form that he had created based on the basket mask. It was inscribed: To Ray and Patsy, with love from Henry.

Patsy had a very natural rapport with artists – even with the most shy and retiring of artists like Andy Warhol. Warhol, like Patsy was an inveterate collector. Patsy actually traded some prints and jewelry with Andy Warhol for portraits of herself and her daughters. The Warhol portraits of Patsy and the three portraits of the Nasher daughters will be shown for the first time in the exhibition.

Andy Warhol, Portrait of Patsy Nasher, 1978, Silkscreeen and acrylic on canvas, 40 3/8 x 40 3/8 in.

Can you share a story behind an important acquisition?

When Patsy was ill and undergoing treatment for cancer, they had the opportunity to buy one of the most important sculptures of the twentieth century - a plaster cast of Picasso's Head of a Woman (Fernande) from 1909, the very first Cubist sculpture ever made. It came up at a dealer in New York and Patsy was in the hospital undergoing treatment for cancer. So that Patsy could see it, Ray had the sculpture brought to the hospital. She was thrilled. She wanted to put it in the car and bring it home with her right away. It is a touching story about how important the art was even during that difficult experience.