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The masterworks displayed at the Nasher Sculpture Center are but a taste from the far-reaching collection of the late Raymond Nasher. Art filled his Dallas home, his offices and his vast NorthPark Center. "Ray had hundreds of things in several big warehouses around the metroplex," says Nasher Sculpture Center board member William Jordan.

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Le Baiser, a painting by Pablo Picasso, is one of two marquee pieces to be auctioned in May, expected to fetch up to $15 million. The Nasher Sculpture Center will still own two other Picasso paintings and seven Picasso sculptures.

Approximately 200 of those pieces will be sold in four auctions in May at Sotheby's New York. Proceeds from the sale, which could range from $30 million to $40 million, will go to the Nasher Foundation to support the center.

Sunday will be the first anniversary of Mr. Nasher's death.

"He had started the process of looking to sell some art to create an endowment," says Elliot Cattarulla, executive director of the Nasher Foundation. "Of course, he didn't do it knowing he was going to die in a few months."

But he had done active estate planning, selling the crown jewel of his real estate empire, NorthPark Center, to his daughter and son-in-law and divesting himself of many of his business holdings. But his entire art collection, including works displayed at the sculpture center, remained his personal property and is valued at more than $350 million.

He bequeathed the entire collection and many additional assets to the Nasher Foundation.

Mr. Nasher and his wife, Patsy, who died in 1988, were known for their 20th-century sculpture, considered the finest private collection in the world. But their holdings spanned pre-Columbian, African and American Indian art, contemporary paintings and drawings, and comprehensive selections of post-World War II American prints by artists such as Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and Richard Diebenkorn.

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Raymond Nasher left behind a collection worth $350 million.

Like a modern Medici, Mr. Nasher had trouble controlling his acquisitive impulse. "As the collection grew, things would be rotated," Mr. Jordan explains. Paintings and sculpture would move on a circuit from the Nasher home, to NorthPark, and later to the sculpture center and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in North Carolina, as well as the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy, and a host of museums that he and his wife would lend to.

After Mr. Nasher spent $72 million out of his own pocket to build the Nasher Sculpture Center downtown, his focus narrowed.

"Most of what's being sold was in storage," says Mr. Jordan, former director of Southern Methodist University's Meadows Museum and former deputy director of the Kimbell Art Museum. "People don't realize how vast the collection was."

The marquee pieces to be auctioned are two late Picasso paintings, Le Baiser (The Kiss), 1969, expected to fetch between $10 million and $15 million, and L'Atelier (The Studio), 1961-62, estimated between $6 million and $8 million.

"We did not want to sacrifice anything related to the core mission of the center," says Mr. Jordan, "that is to say, sculpture. We knew that we would not be able to reach the numbers we need to reach without losing some great things. Reluctantly, we had to let these two Picassos go."

The Nasher Center will still own two other Picasso paintings and seven Picasso sculptures.

"Late Picassos are very sought after," says Warren Weitman, Sotheby's chairman of North and South America. "Those two Picassos so cross the boundary between modern and contemporary art, they should fare very, very well. There are also two wonderful little [Alberto] Giacometti sculptures. There is a magnificent Hans Hofmann [painting] and a beautiful [Jean] Dubuffet [sculpture] that used to be at the foot of the stairwell in the Nasher Sculpture Center. It's one of those iconic ones with all the elements."

Even the many prints in the sale will provide collectors an opportunity to own something precious.

"There are a whole series of Jasper Johns prints that are very rare," says Mr. Weitman, referring to the 1968 Black Numeral Series. "Who has an opportunity to buy an entire series of great Johns prints? You don't get that chance. They usually come up one at a time."

Arriving at a numerical value of Mr. Nasher's bequests to his foundation is an imprecise science.

"Some assets are liquid and some are not," says Mr. Cattarulla. "There is property and other assets that need to be disposed of. We won't know what it's all worth until we get the estate settled.

"Ray's legacy was to leave us more art than we could ever display," he adds. "To sell some of that art and use it to support the Nasher Sculpture Center was his intention. When you add it all up, it's extraordinary what he's leaving for the benefit of this community."