Collector's items boost Nasher

DURHAM -- Duke alumnus E. Blake Byrne started collecting art for his alma mater 10 years before the university had a suitable place to hang it. A Sol LeWitt drawing here, an Ed Ruscha portfolio there -- the items added up.

Last weekend, Byrne made an occasion of his 50-year class reunion by announcing his gift of more than 200 individual works by 26 artists to the Nasher Museum of Art, which opened in fall 2005 on Duke University's West Campus. With this single gesture, he doubled the size of the museum's collection of contemporary art.

As reunion activities took place all over campus, Byrne sat on the museum auditorium stage and conversed with director Kimerly Rorschach about his passion for collecting. He also talked about museum namesake Raymond D. Nasher, whose memory he honored with the gift.

Byrne's presence extended deep into the exhibition spaces, where works by Kehinde Wiley, Lyle Ashton Harris, Fred Wilson, Glenn Ligon, Marlene Dumas and others were on view as "Collected Identities: Gifts From the Blake Byrne Collection." In another pavilion, the Byrne Family Galleries housed objects from the exhibition "Street Level: Mark Bradford, William Cordova and Robin Rhode."

"When I finished Duke in 1957, a lot of people in this room would not have suggested that I'd be sitting here talking about contemporary art," he said.

But Byrne has gone far in 50 years, joining the elite group of international collectors who appear on the ARTnews 200 Top Collectors list.

After finishing at Duke and earning his master's from Columbia University, he embarked on a broadcasting career that led him to Los Angeles. Two years ago, he made history with the largest donation of artworks by a private collector to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles: 123 works by 78 artists.

He can't credit his interest in art directly to Duke. When he attended the university, it didn't even have a museum.

"There were art history majors, but that was a girls' thing," he said. He started to take an art history class but dropped it as soon as he realized it involved a lot of memorization.

Nonetheless, Byrne credits Duke with whetting his appetite for learning.

"When I left this university, I knew a very little bit about a lot of things, but I wanted to learn more about everything," he said.

A collector is born

When Byrne was growing up, his family traveled a great deal, and visiting museums was always an important part of exploring a new place. When he married, he and his wife honeymooned in Europe, collected the requisite watercolors from Montmartre and supplemented their fledgling collection with art posters.

Moving to New York, they lived near the SculptureCenter. They would buy a $1,000 sculpture on time, and slowly a collection grew. In their eventual divorce, Byrne says, his former wife kept most of the art. He began collecting for himself.

Responding to a question from Rorschach, he described the object of collecting in terms of a choice he made early on.

"My first big scary decision was deciding whether to buy a Martin Disler sculpture or a Bruce Nauman neon, which was an edition of 12," he said. "I decided to go with the unique piece [the Disler]."

It was a bad financial decision. The Nauman went up in value while the Disler simply maintained a value close to what he paid. The price differential between the two works is now about $500,000.

But that's hardly the point.

"I love that piece," he says of the sculpture. "It's been at the front door of my house since I bought it. Letting your heart decide what you want is very important. You should collect art because you love it."