ArtTalks: Raymond D. Nasher
Tuesday, January 25, 2005 – 6:30 pm
AFA (American Federation of Arts)
41 East 65th Street, New York
RSVP: 212.988.7700, ext. 64.
www.afaweb.org
As part of ArtTalks, the AFA’s lecture series, Raymond D. Nasher, one of the country’s leading collectors of modern and contemporary sculpture, will talk with AFA Curator of Exhibitions Yvette Y. Lee about the formation of his extensive collection, his vision for founding the Nasher Sculpture Center, and the challenges of bringing it to fruition. ArtTalks will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, January 25, at the AFA, located at 41 East 65th Street, New York. After the talk, audience members are invited to join Mr. Nasher for an intimate reception. There is a reduced admission for AFA members and students with valid identification. Seating is limited and reservations are required. For reservations, please call 212.988.7700, ext. 64. ArtTalks is presented by Target Stores.
Raymond Nasher first began collecting sculpture with his late wife Patsy more than fifty years ago. After an influential trip to Mexico, they began building what would soon become a considerable collection of pre-Columbian objects and eventually evolved to also include a number of important American modern works of sculpture. Mr. Nasher often credits his desire to begin collecting sculpture to this early fascination with objects from ancient Latin America.
By the mid-1960s, the Nashers made their first significant purchases of modern sculpture, among them, Jean Arp’s Torso With Buds (1961) and Henry Moore’s Three Piece No. 3: Vertebre (1968) and Two Piece Reclining Figure No. 9 (1968). They went on to acquire works by Alexander Calder, Joan Miro, and Isamu Noguchi. In 1965, when Mr. Nasher opened North Park Center, a retail shopping center in Dallas, he began to rotate groups of sculpture throughout the public spaces, incorporating a unique building design that could display large works by artists such as Jonathan Borofsky, Henry Moore, Beverly Pepper, George Segal, and Mark di Suvero,
Throughout the years, the Nashers continued to collect sculpture, now counting works by almost all the modern masters, among them, Alberto Giacometti, Henri Matisse, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Pablo Picasso, Medardo Rosso, Richard Serra, and David Smith. In 1987, by which time it had gained international recognition, the Nasher Collection was one of the first exhibitions to debut in the Dallas Museum of Art’s new building. The collection has subsequently been shown at the National Gallery of Art; the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. In October 2003, Nasher opened the Nasher Sculpture Center in downtown Dallas to display his exceptional collection. Designed by renowned architect Renzo Piano, the center features a regularly rotating selection of works in both its indoor and outdoor galleries.
The AFA initiates and organizes art exhibitions that are presented in museums around the world. The AFA also publishes exhibition catalogues and offers educational and professional development programs for the museum community and general public. For more information, log on to our Web site at www.afaweb.org
