Graduate School of Management December Commencement Speaker

Raymond D. Nasher

Raymond D. Nasher, prominent real estate developer and banker, is Chairman of The Nasher Foundation and Chairman of Comerica Bank-Texas. He is also a renowned world leader in the arts. He is one of this country’s leading collectors of modern and contemporary sculpture. He also was one of the first real estate developers in the United States to place art, primarily sculpture, in commercial retail complexes. He did this believing that art nurtures intellectual and aesthetic curiosity and enhances the overall experience of every environment.

Mr. Nasher and his late wife, Patsy, began collecting art nearly fifty years ago. Over time the collection evolved into one of the most extensive and important collections of modern sculpture in private hands. In 1965, when Mr. Nasher opened his first retail shopping center in Dallas, NorthPark Center, he made a commitment to installing art throughout the Center. To do this, he designed a structure inside and out that met the needs of retailers and had the space necessary to display large sculptures by artists such as Jonathan Borofsky, Mark di Suvero, Henry Moore, Beverly Pepper, and George Segal. The design also included special interior water features, open spaces, as well as exterior landscape, all of which complement the art. NorthPark Center and the nearby NorthPark National Bank (now Comerica Bank)—another project of The Nasher Company—have both won architectural and design awards, and have become models for other developers throughout the world. Currently undergoing an expansion that will make it the biggest mall in the Dallas area, NorthPark Center generates annual sales volumes that make it one of the top shopping centers in the country.

Mr. Nasher has played a leading role in the development and growth of many of the major arts organizations in Dallas. He contributed to increased business support of the arts in Dallas by establishing the Dallas Business Committee for the Arts. He is a member of the national Business Committee for the Arts and has been a board member of The Dallas Museum of Art, The Dallas Opera, The Dallas Symphony, the Dallas Theatre Center, Ballet Dallas, and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. He was appointed to serve on the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. He has served on the Texas Commission on the Arts and was formerly the Ambassador of Cultural Affairs for the City of Dallas. The Nasher Company has received Business in the Arts Awards in recognition of its outstanding commitment to business-arts alliances.

Mr. Nasher has also served in several governmental positions, including: Chairman, National Commission of Urban Development; Executive Director of the White House Conference on International Cooperation; member of the President’s Commission on Urban Housing (Kaiser Commission); U.S. Delegate to the General Assembly of the U.N.; member U.S. Commission to UNESCO; Member – U.S.–German Cooperative Delegation; Board Director, the U.N. Association of the USA. He has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations since 1995 and is currently a member of the National Council of the U.N. Association of the USA. Mr. Nasher is the 2003 recipient of the H. Neil Mallon Award of the World Affairs Council of Greater Dallas.

In 2003, Mr. Nasher opened the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, which houses pieces from his collection of more than 300 works. Personally financed by Mr. Nasher, the highly acclaimed Center, occupying a 2.5 acre site in Dallas' downtown Arts District, consists of a 55,000-square foot building designed by architect Renzo Piano and a 1.5 acre garden designed by landscape architect Peter Walker. Mr. Nasher also established a Sculpture Garden in his name at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, which presents a rotating selection of sculptures from the Nasher collection. In addition, he contributed $7.5 million to the development of the Nasher Museum of Art, which opened in October of 2005 at Duke University, where he graduated with a B.A. in 1943. The Nasher Foundation contributed an additional $2.5 million to the Nasher Museum at Duke, which exhibits a large selection of modern and contemporary art from the Nasher Collection.

Mr. Nasher is a visionary with a deep understanding of what constitutes humane and nurturing communities, contributing his time and resources in civic and cultural affairs to improving the human environment.