By Bill Zeeble, KERA reporter
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-573983.mp3
Dallas, TX – Bill Zeeble, KERA 90.1 reporter: People who knew and worked with Ray Nasher, have said over the weekend what many have come to realize: That he was a visionary who held only the highest standards of quality in his heart and mind, and that's what he created and leaves behind. It's evident in North Park Center, the lastingly successful mall which he built in 1965, then filled with great art. It's evident in The Nasher Sculpture Center that houses what's been called the greatest modern sculpture collection in the world. To many, like Steve Nash, outgoing Director of the Center, the loss is personal too.
Steve Nash, Director, Nasher Sculpture Center: Huge shock, unanticipated. Ray was generally in good health, & we expected many more years. We're really reeling from this news.
Zeeble: For those in the arts, like Valerie Fletcher, Senior Curator at the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn museum - losing Ray Nasher is like losing a kindred soul. He didn't just buy sculpture, as investors might, she said. He was passionate about it. And he wanted to educate others about sculpture. He would fund seminars with scholars, like her, to travel here and talk about it to anyone who'd attend. She recalls when she was still a student, studying works by Alberto Giacometti, whose art Nasher avidly collected.
Valerie Fletcher, Senior Curator, Modern Art, Hirshhorn Museum: He just basically said, any time you want to come, come to my house - & this is before the museum opened or was even being built - and he would say Make yourself at home, and he let me stay there for hours to study the work. This is unusual among private collectors, to become scholarly and to share and encourage that with young and unknown researchers.
Zeeble: Fletcher said the relationship Ray and Patsy Nasher had with sculpture heartfelt. It wasn't about possessing, she said, but about sharing their life with art, & sharing that art, and that love, with the world.
Fletcher: What you want to do, what you did with Ray, you went up and hugged him. He hugged back, because both shared that love of sculpture. You might not even know him very well, but you shared that passion and he always remembered who you were and what you did in sculpture.
Zeeble: Maybe Nasher remembered, because those passionate about sculpture are rare. Lee Cullum, KERA commentator & Dallas Morning News op-ed columnist, says Nasher knew about rare because Nasher himself was exceptional. She spoke by phone from Europe on Sunday.
Lee Cullum, commentator:Ray lived against the grain in Dallas. Where Dallas was Republican, Ray was a Democrat. Where Dallas was traditional in taste, Ray was avante garde. Where Dallas was focused on its own affairs, Ray was an internationalist. So Ray was always ahead of the rest of us. I think the city was beginning to catch up with him.
Zeeble: Others learned early to appreciate Nasher's thoughtful, informed opinions. He served 2 Democratic presidents, LBJ and Clinton, and 2 Republicans, Bush father and son. Lee Cullum adds that if you had personal contact with Nasher, you also learned some life lessons.
Cullum: Ray had a good time. He took good care of self. He was disciplined about his health. But not fanatacial. He was always up for a rack of lamb and deserts, and staying up late and going out. 322 He knew how to live. I think he got the most out of his 85 years. That's because he gave so much to them.
Zeeble: Robert Wilson, Nasher's long time friend and biographer, who wrote The Epitome of Desire, about Nasher in Dallas, will simply miss him.
Robert Wilson, friend, author: He was an independent thinker. He would listen to other opinions but went his own way.; we worked together. I'm so sad to hear of his death because I see few like him out there.
Zeeble: Lee Cullum sees Nasher's passing as the end of an era, in a way. With the death of Stanley Marcus 5 years ago, Dallas, she says, lost its 2 most important cultural figures. Ray Nasher offered a new conception of excellence, and a way of looking at life, because she said, for Ray Nasher, art was life. For KERA 90.1 I'm Bill Zeeble .
Bzeeble@Kera.Org