Post by Librarian on May 13, 2004 17:45:23 GMT -5
I hope no one has posted this on this forum already - I noticed that Itsanowenthing has posted this on planetowen.com as well. The following article was in the Dallas Morning News earlier this week. What an impressive family.
Of art and wise parents
09:55 PM CDT on Sunday, May 9, 2004
By ALAN PEPPARD / The Dallas Morning News
With an art collection worth hundreds of millions of dollars and a general cerebral air, it's tempting to think of Ray Nasher and his late wife, Patsy, as the art world's equivalent of Edith Wharton's van der Luydens from The Age of Innocence –a couple who "stood above all of them" and "faded into kind of a superterrestrial twilight."
But that would be a terrible disservice not only to the Nashers, but also to their parents.
Janet and Israel Nasher lived with their young son, Raymond, on the third floor of a Boston "triple-decker," while Israel's younger brother lived on the second floor with his family and Israel's parents lived on the first.
In his new book, Epitome of Desire, Dallas author Robert A. "Bob" Wilson looks at the Nashers' lives and the events that led to the opening of the Nasher Sculpture Center last fall. It will be in bookstores later this month.
"My parents were determined that their only child would try to be something above and beyond what their goals could be," Mr. Nasher says in the book.
"And so they spent all of their time trying to educate me." In so doing, they sent him to Boston Latin, the oldest public school in the country. "It was the great leveler," Bob says.
"Patsy and Ray did their homework like no one you've ever seen," he adds.
"The collection reflects their taste. They didn't turn it over to third parties to put it together." That scholarship and personal touch give the collection its boldness.
Architect Philip Johnson said about the de Menil family of Houston that "they were unpretentious, but arrogant enough," Bob says. "I think that applies to the Nashers. They were unpretentious and unconcerned with society but they were arrogant enough. You have to be to achieve what they did."
As the first president of KERA-TV (Channel 13), Bob Wilson had a life in public television that predated his current incarnation as an author and father of movie stars Andrew, Owen and Luke Wilson.
In those days, he befriended Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough. Next month, the two proud fathers will be together in Dallas to promote a book by Mr. McCullough's youngest child, Dorie McCullough Lawson.
On Saturday, Bob and his wife, photographer Laura Wilson, were at the New York Historical Society to hear readings from Dorie's new book, Posterity: Letters of Great Americans to Their Children. Among the readers was Mr. McCullough, fellow Pulitzer winner Frank McCourt, Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. and artist Jamie Wyeth who read letters from his painter father, Andrew.
Next month, Mr. McCullough and his wife, Rosalee, will fly to Texas to see Dorie feted at a book signing at the Wilsons' <snip> home.
Modified: I was asked to remove the reference to the Wilson's Dallas home street.
Of art and wise parents
09:55 PM CDT on Sunday, May 9, 2004
By ALAN PEPPARD / The Dallas Morning News
With an art collection worth hundreds of millions of dollars and a general cerebral air, it's tempting to think of Ray Nasher and his late wife, Patsy, as the art world's equivalent of Edith Wharton's van der Luydens from The Age of Innocence –a couple who "stood above all of them" and "faded into kind of a superterrestrial twilight."
But that would be a terrible disservice not only to the Nashers, but also to their parents.
Janet and Israel Nasher lived with their young son, Raymond, on the third floor of a Boston "triple-decker," while Israel's younger brother lived on the second floor with his family and Israel's parents lived on the first.
In his new book, Epitome of Desire, Dallas author Robert A. "Bob" Wilson looks at the Nashers' lives and the events that led to the opening of the Nasher Sculpture Center last fall. It will be in bookstores later this month.
"My parents were determined that their only child would try to be something above and beyond what their goals could be," Mr. Nasher says in the book.
"And so they spent all of their time trying to educate me." In so doing, they sent him to Boston Latin, the oldest public school in the country. "It was the great leveler," Bob says.
"Patsy and Ray did their homework like no one you've ever seen," he adds.
"The collection reflects their taste. They didn't turn it over to third parties to put it together." That scholarship and personal touch give the collection its boldness.
Architect Philip Johnson said about the de Menil family of Houston that "they were unpretentious, but arrogant enough," Bob says. "I think that applies to the Nashers. They were unpretentious and unconcerned with society but they were arrogant enough. You have to be to achieve what they did."
As the first president of KERA-TV (Channel 13), Bob Wilson had a life in public television that predated his current incarnation as an author and father of movie stars Andrew, Owen and Luke Wilson.
In those days, he befriended Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough. Next month, the two proud fathers will be together in Dallas to promote a book by Mr. McCullough's youngest child, Dorie McCullough Lawson.
On Saturday, Bob and his wife, photographer Laura Wilson, were at the New York Historical Society to hear readings from Dorie's new book, Posterity: Letters of Great Americans to Their Children. Among the readers was Mr. McCullough, fellow Pulitzer winner Frank McCourt, Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. and artist Jamie Wyeth who read letters from his painter father, Andrew.
Next month, Mr. McCullough and his wife, Rosalee, will fly to Texas to see Dorie feted at a book signing at the Wilsons' <snip> home.
Modified: I was asked to remove the reference to the Wilson's Dallas home street.