Visual Arts

Steven Nash, who coordinated the organization and opening of the Nasher Sculpture Center and served as director for its first three years, will leave the post in early March. He'll be the new executive director of the Palm Springs Art Museum in California.

Allison V. Smith

Steve Nash

"Having taken it from before infancy through construction and its birthing pains," Dr. Nash said of the Nasher, "it's up and running and a mature institution. I was ready for a new challenge, and that's what occurred when the people from Palm Springs called."

Dr. Nash's Dallas farewell will be the "Matisse: Painter as Sculptor" show divided between the Nasher and the Dallas Museum of Art and opening Jan. 21. He curated the exhibition along with the DMA's Dorothy Kosinski and Jay Fisher of the Baltimore Museum of Art.

"I've known and worked with Steve since the '80s," said Raymond D. Nasher, founder and chairman of the museum bearing his name. "He's been an important part of the growth and development of the Nasher Sculpture Center since its creation."

Dr. Nash was named director of the Nasher Sculpture Center in January 2001, when construction began on the museum's Renzo Piano building. The museum, with outdoor garden designed by landscape architect Peter Walker, opened in October 2003.

The museum displays selections from one of the world's important collections of modern sculpture, assembled over five decades by Mr. Nasher and his late wife, Patsy.

A Dartmouth College graduate with a Ph.D. in art history from Stanford University, Dr. Nash began his career as a curator at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, N.Y. From 1980 to 1988 he was deputy director and chief curator of the Dallas Museum of Art. Before coming to the Nasher, he spent 13 years as associate director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

At the end of his DMA tenure, Dr. Nash organized the first big touring exhibition of the Nashers' sculpture collection, shown at the DMA, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., several European museums and finally in Tel Aviv, Israel. While in San Francisco he organized another Nasher show that traveled to New York's Guggenheim Museum.

"We had a very rich working relationship," Dr. Nash said of working with the Nashers.

At age 62, Dr. Nash is moving to a nearly 70-year-old museum whose holdings range from American Indian and Mesoamerican to Western, modern and contemporary American art.

"There's a lot of focus on sculpture, which is a specialty of mine," Dr. Nash said. "But it will be good to spread my wings again and be involved in earlier art, art of other cultures and media. That's all of interest to me.

"Picking up and leaving the Nasher is like cutting off an arm. But this is another big challenge, and probably the final one. It seems like a great way to bring things eventually to a halt."

E-mail scantrell@dallasnews.com