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The Nasher Foundation
Raymond Nasher, a Duke graduate who made his fortune developing NorthPark Center with wife Patsy, established The Nasher Foundation in 1997 to preserve their...
The Nasher Foundation
Raymond Nasher, a Duke graduate who made his fortune developing NorthPark Center with wife Patsy, established The Nasher Foundation in 1997 to preserve their collection and advance public engagement with modern sculpture. The foundation's core asset is the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection, a peerless assembly of over 300 works including major pieces by Picasso, Matisse, Giacometti, and Richard Serra, widely recognized as one of the finest private holdings of its kind (public record). Investment activity is inseparable from the foundation's operating assets. NorthPark Center in Dallas — 2.3 million square feet of retail space — generates recurring cash flow that sustains foundation operations and acquisitions. The Nasher Sculpture Center, opened in 2003, serves as the permanent home for the collection and a venue for scholarly research. Together these properties shape a distinct deployment model: commercial real estate returns subsidize art preservation, with no publicly disclosed allocation to third-party funds or direct co-investment vehicles. Nancy A. Nasher, daughter of the founders, leads the foundation as president, while David J. Haemisegger — her husband and a director at Cullen/Frost Bankers — chairs the board. The family also established the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in 2005 with a gift of the collection's foundational pieces and a Renzo Piano-designed building. Raymond Nasher founded the Business Council for the Arts in 1988, embedding North Texas corporate leadership into the region's cultural infrastructure. The foundation's structure fuses a grantmaking entity with a direct operating business — it is simultaneously landlord, museum operator, and art lender. Nasher Sculpture Center exhibitions draw on the foundation's own holdings and rotate international loans, while NorthPark's curated art program places museum-quality works inside the shopping center. This vertical integration across commercial property, nonprofit display space, and loan-based programming distinguishes it from a standard family foundation that writes checks from a diversified pool of liquid assets.
General information
Firm type
Foundation
Year founded
1997
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
Dallas
Corporate office
Forney, TX, United States
Principals
Nancy A. Nasher
President
David J. Haemisegger
Chairman of the Board of Trustees
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who controls investment decisions at The Nasher Foundation?
Nancy A. Nasher serves as foundation president, with David J. Haemisegger chairing the board of trustees and concurrently serving as a director at Cullen/Frost Bankers. The foundation has no publicly disclosed CIO or external OCIO relationship. Decision-making appears to center on the president and board, consistent with a tightly held family foundation structure where principal assets are directly owned operating businesses rather than outsourced portfolios.
How does NorthPark Center relate to the foundation's grantmaking?
NorthPark Center, developed by Raymond and Patsy Nasher and now led by Nancy A. Nasher, is one of the highest-grossing shopping malls in the United States. The Nashers retain majority ownership, and income from the retail property serves as the foundation's primary revenue engine — funding Nasher Sculpture Center operations, acquisitions for the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection, and grants in education and medical research.
Does The Nasher Foundation make grants to external organizations?
Yes. Beyond operating the Nasher Sculpture Center, the foundation has historically supported Duke University, including the founding of the Nasher Museum of Art, and contributed to medical research and education initiatives. Specific annual grantmaking totals are not publicly disclosed.
What is the significance of the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection?
The collection comprises more than 300 modern and contemporary sculptures, with particular depth in works by Rodin, Matisse, Picasso, Giacometti, David Smith, and Richard Serra. Art scholars consider it one of the foremost private assemblages of modern sculpture globally. The foundation maintains and selectively expands the collection, viewing it as a permanent cultural asset rather than a liquid investment.
Does the foundation participate in art lending or deaccessioning?
The Nasher Sculpture Center regularly organizes traveling exhibitions drawn from the collection and lends individual works to major museums internationally. There is no public record of deaccessioning for financial purposes. The foundation's posture treats the collection as a core mission endowment to be preserved and exhibited, not monetized.
How is the Nasher Sculpture Center governed?
The Nasher Sculpture Center operates as a nonprofit institution under the foundation's umbrella, with its own professional curatorial and leadership staff. David J. Haemisegger chairs the foundation's board, and the center's executive director manages day-to-day museum operations. This layered governance separates foundation-level trusteeship from museum programming while maintaining unified financial control.
Is The Nasher Foundation related to the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University?
Raymond Nasher and his family provided the lead gift to establish the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke, which opened in 2005 in a building also designed by Renzo Piano. The museum holds works donated from the Nasher Collection and operates independently from the foundation, though the Nasher name and curatorial legacy link both institutions.
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