Nasher's love of art lifted Durham

The Triangle owes its new reputation as a place to see world-class contemporary art to one man: Raymond D. Nasher.

Dallas can make the same claim. In fact, art lovers around the world are indebted to what the wealthy businessman did to share his and his late wife's collection of more than 1,100 works.

So on Saturday, a far-flung art world mourned Nasher's sudden death at age 85 in a Dallas hospital Friday. He had become ill on a return flight from Paris the evening before.

"It's a huge loss for us," said Kimerly Rorschach, director of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. "Having his vision and his help and patronage has been key in our being successful. This was really too soon, from our point of view."

Without him, the contemporary art museum that opened a year and a half ago on the Durham campus simply would not exist. Of the region's three museums -- the N.C. Museum of Art in Raleigh and the Ackland Art Museum at UNC-Chapel Hill are the others -- the Nasher is the only one that emphasizes contemporary artists.

Nasher made a fortune in real estate development and banking, beginning in Dallas in the 1950s. For decades, he and his wife, Patsy, collected everything from pre-Columbian artifacts to pop art.

Patsy Nasher was a particularly adventurous patron, soliciting work by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. Together, the couple amassed what is said to be the world's largest modern sculpture collection.

Nasher told The News & Observer in 2005 that he didn't know how big the collection was. "It's the quality that counts," he said. After his wife's death in 1988, Nasher continued collecting but not as actively.

Nasher was a diminutive man who dressed impeccably in suits. His quiet, gentle voice retained the Boston Brahmin accent of his upbringing. He decided more than 15 years ago he wanted Duke, his alma mater, to have an art museum equal to other elite university museums. He settled on a neglected lot on campus, but a biology professor who was using it to study weeds proved to be a frustrating roadblock.

Nasher told university administrators to get back to him when they were serious about having a museum. It took a visit from then-President Nan Keohane to convince Nasher that Duke really wanted the project. It wasn't until about four years ago that he committed to spend $10 million to get the museum built.

"It took longer for us to get there than he might have wished, but I know that he was very proud of the handsome and versatile museum that bears his name and was built with his generous support," Keohane said Saturday.

Nasher made monthly trips to Durham to check in on the progress of the building, which was designed by renowned architect Rafael Vinoly, and loaned a sampling of his collection for the opening exhibition. He continued to serve on its advisory board and made frequent visits, as recently as last month to introduce a lecture by Guggenheim museums director Thomas Krens.

Paula Cooper, owner of the venerable New York City gallery that carries her name, said she was stung by Raymond Nasher's unexpected death.

"It's a tremendous loss to the art world; it's a tremendous loss to the world, period, and to the people who knew him," Cooper said.

She praised Nasher's dedication to sharing art with the public in places that he built, like the huge NorthPark Center shopping mall and the $70 million Nasher Sculpture Center, both in Dallas. For years the world's most prestigious museums had courted his collection before Nasher decided to build his own in downtown Dallas in 2003.

"He finally said the way to do this right is to do it myself, and that's what he did," said Elliot Cattarulla, executive director of the Nasher Foundation in Dallas. "And that's what he did with the Nasher at Duke. He waited for the right spot."

He is survived by three daughters. Funeral arrangements are pending.