Raymond Nasher, 85, Sculpture Center Visionary

Real estate mogul and art collector Raymond Nasher founder of the widely admired Dallas sculpture center that bears his name, died unexpectedly yesterday in a Dallas hospital.

"It came as a complete surprise," Steven Nash, director of the Nasher Sculpture Center, told the Dallas Morning News.

Much courted by major museums for his superb collection of modern and contemporary sculpture, he opted instead for the single-collector treatment at what is now the three-year-old Nasher Sculpture Center---an indoor-outdoor oasis that, to my mind, is one of Renzo Piano's greatest achievements. It owes much of its success to the sympathetic, synergistic collaboration between architect and client. Its proximity to the Dallas Museum of Art and the Meyerson Symphony Center has created a vibrant cultural district in an area otherwise dominated by highrise office buildings.

For my admiring assessment of the Nasher and other single-collector museums, go here.

He also provided $10 million in construction funds, as well as loans from his private collection, for the Nasher Museum, which opened in 2005 at Duke University, his alma mater.