“Generations: 150 Years of Sculpture,” opened May 15 at the Nasher Sculpture Center. The exhibition, drawn from the Nasher’s permanent collection, features numerous recent acquisitions, and is on exhibit through Aug. 24.
Generations is a collaboration between the museum’s curators—Interim Director and Chief Curator Jed Morse, Senior Curator Dr. Catherine Craft, Curator Dr. Leigh Arnold, and Curatorial Assistant Sydney Smith. It demonstrates the Nasher’s continued efforts to expand and deepen the representation of key practitioners of the medium.
Founders Raymond and Patsy Nasher
The Nasher Founders Raymond and Patsy Nasher collected works by artists of different generations, finding common threads between them despite the span of years that might separate their creations. Recent additions to the collection, received from individuals and foundations as well as Nasher Drawings Forum purchases, continue the Nashers’ tradition of generosity and insight.
The exhibition features over 50 works of art, 22 acquired in the last year, including 11 of 36works as part of a major gift that the museum received from Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger in 2024. This landmark support for the institution is one of the largest gifts on record from a private family since the museum’s founding by Raymond and Patsy in 2003. The gift includes works by 24 artists, with sculptures by Nairy Baghramian, Kevin Beasley, Huma Bhabha, Anthony Caro, Jaume Plensa, Jean Tinguely and many others.
The period encompassed by Generations spans two world wars, astounding technological innovations, dramatic changes to the earth’s environment, and increased movement across geographic borders for people of all kinds. Artists have continued to find new ways to give form to concerns as old as humanity itself.
Generations at the Nasher Sculpture Center
“Generations gave the curators at the Nasher Sculpture Center a unique opportunity to trace practices and themes central to Modern and contemporary sculpture within our truly remarkable and growing collection,” says Interim Director and Chief Curator Jed Morse. “It also, in a sense, encapsulates the heart of the museum’s mission, communicating the varied and powerful ways sculpture is used as an essential form of human expression through artists represented in our collection, past and present, made across the globe and right here in Dallas.”
The Nasher Sculpture Center is home to the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection, one of the finest collections of modern and contemporary sculpture in the world, featuring more than 500 masterpieces by Brancusi, Calder, de Kooning, di Suvero, Giacometti, Basquiat, Hepworth, LeWitt, Matisse, Miró, Moore, Picasso, Rodin, Serra, and Shapiro, among others. The Nasher Sculpture Center is open Wednesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5p.m. Admission is $10 for adults, $7 for seniors, $5 for students, and free for children 12 and under and members, and includes access to special exhibitions. For more information, please visit NasherSculptureCenter.org.
