Nasher Foundation

Nasher Foundation

The Nasher Foundation was established in 1997 by the late Raymond D. Nasher and his wife Patsy. Nasher made his fortune developing NorthPark Center in Dallas, a retail landmark he opened in 1965 that still ranks among the highest-performing shopping centers in the United States. The couple assembled the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection, widely regarded as one of the finest private holdings of modern and contemporary sculpture. The foundation remains under family stewardship: daughter Nancy A. Nasher and her husband David J. Haemisegger run NorthPark Management Company, with Haemisegger serving as foundation president. The foundation's capital base is bifurcated. One stream supports the Nasher Sculpture Center, a Renzo Piano-designed museum that opened in downtown Dallas in 2003 and houses the permanent collection alongside rotating exhibitions and scholarly programming. The other stream operates as an investment portfolio. Public records and entity filings indicate allocations across commercial real estate — including the 1800 Pearl Expressway property in Dallas — private equity via vehicles including a U.S. Trust Private Equity Portfolio, alternative investments accessed through TAP Alternative Investments, and hedge fund commitments. The precise asset-class weights are not publicly disclosed, but the structure reflects a permanent-capital posture common to foundations of this size. David Haemisegger directs both the investment operation and NorthPark's commercial strategy from Dallas. His professional network extends into institutional circles through membership on the Wharton School Graduate Executive Board and the Library of Congress James Madison Council. The family maintains ties to Dallas's business and philanthropic establishment through the Dallas Country Club, Brook Hollow Golf Club, and the Business Council for the Arts. The foundation also supports the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Raymond Nasher's alma mater, extending its curatorial influence beyond Texas. Total professionals dedicated to the foundation's investment function are not publicly reported. What distinguishes the Nasher Foundation structurally is its refusal to separate the art from the commercial asset that funds it. NorthPark Center is not merely the source of wealth — it remains an operating business and a curatorial venue where the foundation displays large-scale works by artists including Andy Warhol and Mark Di Suvero in a public shopping environment. This collapses the line between investment, philanthropy, and exhibition in a way that few American foundations replicate. Succession resides with the second generation, with Nancy Nasher and David Haemisegger controlling both the foundation's grantmaking and the commercial real estate engine behind it.