Epitome of Desire

This is an American story that reminds us of the possibilities our nation offers. It's the story of the son of a Russian immigrant, Ray Nasher, who was born in Boston, lived in a three-decker house, and graduated from that great democratizer, Boston Latin School. It's the story of his entrepreneurial success in Texas and his marriage to Patsy and their creation, over the course of more than forty years, of one of the greatest sculpture collections of the twentieth century.

It's also the story of how that sculpture collection and the Nashers were courted by the most powerful art institutions and their directors—the National Gallery and its director, the late Carter Brown, the Guggenheim and its impresario, Thomas Krens, the Tate in London, and the Dallas Museum of Art. It's the story about how, in the end, Nasher did it his way, buying land next to the Dallas Museum and conceiving there an extraordinary sculpture center, designed by Renzo Piano, the Italian architect of unsurpassed insight into what the museum experience should be.

Picasso. Matisse. Giacommetti. Moore. Brancusi. Arp. Gauguin. The giants of the twentieth century form the core of the Nasher Collection. And for Nasher, the pursuit is without end. For him the most important acquisition remains, as it does with all true collectors, the next one.

This is a book about art and ambition. And, finally, the triumph of the Nashers' will to create a collection focused only on the best.