Nasher Sculpture Center

The Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas holds one of the most significant collections of modern and contemporary sculpture in the world, assembled by Raymond and Patsy Nasher over five decades of passionate collecting and now permanently installed in a landmark building designed by Renzo Piano in the heart of Dallas's Arts District. The collection spans 20th-century sculpture from Auguste Rodin and Henri Matisse through the postwar masters who defined the field, including works by Alberto Giacometti, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, David Smith, Donald Judd, Richard Serra, and Cy Twombly, with depth in each artist that exceeds what most museums can show.

The building, opened in 2003, is a masterwork of museum architecture, with a roof of limestone and glass grids that filters the Texas light into the galleries in ways that serve sculpture specifically: changing throughout the day as the sun moves, making each work appear differently at different times of the visit. The garden, designed by Peter Walker as a collaboration with Piano, extends the collection into a one-acre outdoor setting of native Texas plants and mature trees, where major sculptures by Calder, Serra, Bourgeois, and others are installed in a landscape that makes them visible from multiple angles and under the open sky. The garden is a destination in itself, the finest sculpture garden in Texas and one of the finest in the country.

The museum's temporary exhibition program presents scholarly shows examining specific aspects of modern and contemporary sculpture with access to loans and scholarly resources that reflect the collection's stature. The Nasher Prize, awarded annually to a living sculptor who has shaped the art of our time, has become one of the most prestigious awards in the field, bringing major sculptors to Dallas and extending the center's reach into the international art world. For visitors to Dallas, the Nasher is the most consistently rewarding single museum experience the city offers, and its position in the Arts District makes it a natural companion to the Dallas Museum of Art next door and the Crow Museum of Asian Art two blocks away.