Arts District-Downtown

Business and the arts converge in Downtown Dallas. Major corporations have their headquarters in the skyscrapers that have become a symbol for the city’s status as a growing and successful business center, while artists, galleries, alternative spaces, and leading arts institutions fuel an energetic, varied arts scene. The Main Street District—one of eight districts in Downtown (Fig. 1)1—was the original city center and the first area where the arts thrived. Although the creation of the Arts District spurred a revitalization of Downtown in 1984 with the opening of the Dallas Museum of Art, the arts have always had a dynamic presence there.

The intersection of business and the arts in Downtown Dallas started as early as the 1930s, when Neiman Marcus introduced the Decorative Galleries on the fourth floor of its Main Street flagship store and staged exhibitions of paintings, sculpture, photography, and works on paper.2 The tradition of showing fine art in a department store setting was well established by the time the galleries opened, and for many years they were one of the few places to look at art Downtown.3

After World War II, Dallas joined the nationwide population movement from cities to suburbs, as families and businesses relocated to communities to the north and west. Improved roads and new major highways connected these peripheral areas, and the automobile reigned supreme. With the conveniences offered in suburban shopping malls like Preston Shopping Center and Raymond Nasher’s NorthPark Center,4 suburban residents no longer needed to shop in the Central Business District. The bustling street life that once characterized Downtown Dallas slowly became a thing of the past.

The 1950s and 1960s

The 1950s and early 1960s were a relatively quiet period for the arts in Downtown Dallas. There were more galleries and artists in the neighboring area of Uptown and outside Fair Park because of the activity around the Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts (1956–1963) and the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. When the two institutions merged in 1963,5 local galleries became the place to view contemporary art. The city experienced a gallery boom along Maple Avenue, McKinney Avenue, Fairmount Street, and Cedar Springs Road in Uptown in the 1960s.6 The growing gallery system eventually spread to other neighborhoods, with several galleries opening in Downtown in the mid- to late 1960s.

In 1962, Mr. and Mrs. Van L. Stokes opened the Downtown Gallery in the Hartford Insurance Building at 1919 Pacific Avenue in the Main Street District. Established to exhibit the work of local professional artists, the gallery debuted with a show of work by Lea Steinnasser, David Hanna, and Buddy Mitterman.7 For several years, it was one of the only fine art galleries in the area. By 1969, the neighborhood had welcomed two new spaces: the Main Place Gallery, which opened in a new office tower at One Main Place in 1968 and specialized in contemporary American, European, and regional art, and Mr. and Mrs. Bill Burford’s Texas Art Gallery, which opened in the Adolphus Hotel at 1400 Main Street in 1969 and emphasized western and Texas regional art.

Donald Vogel was president of the Main Place Gallery, an extension of his first gallery, Valley House in North Dallas.8 Directed by Charles Sikes, who was assisted by Colette Weber and Violet Hayden Dowell, Main Place gave Vogel more square footage and the freedom to try new things.9 Group exhibitions featured Valley House artists like Michael Frary, Kelly Fearing, Loren Mozley, and Charles Umlauf, as well as new artists whose work was more appropriate for the new space. Its high ceilings could accommodate large-scale sculpture by artists like Canadian sculptor Sorel Etrog; New York sculptor Thea Tewi, who worked in fine natural materials like marble and onyx; and Kansas native Mac Whitney, who has since made a career in large-scale steel sculpture, working in Ovilla, Texas. The hardship of running two galleries took its toll on Vogel, and he closed Main Place Gallery in 1973 with an exhibition of primitive artifacts.10

With the gallery district well established in Uptown, there were fewer places for young and emerging artists to showcase their work in Downtown Dallas. By the late 1970s, there was only one gallery left in the neighborhood. In 1978, local artists and artist rights advocates John Schrup and Sally Tobin established the Gallery for Dallas Artists, tucked inside the Jas. K. Wilson Co. department store at 1515 Main Street. Exhibits were organized under the auspices of the local chapter of Artists Equity,11 of which Schrup and Tobin were members. The inaugural exhibition included work by Artists Equity members Jeanne Mason Koch, Ruth Natinsky, Annelies Kahn, Laurence Scholder, and James Allumbaugh.12 During the year the gallery was open, it hosted exhibitions by Rowena Elkin, Linda Finnell, Dana Smith, Carlos Vargas, Susan Schiels, and Carol Wilder, all Dallas artists.13

The establishment of El Centro College in the West End Historic District in 1966 helped liven up the streets of Downtown Dallas.14 In its first year, the flagship campus of the Dallas County Junior College District organized a festival celebrating the work of students and faculty in music, drama, art, and speech. The Echo Lounge, the college’s fine art gallery, gave students and faculty the opportunity to organize exhibitions and display their work. Over the years, many of Dallas’ most recognizable artists, including James Stover, Arthur Koch, David Bates, and Sharon Corgan Leeber, have taken classes or taught at El Centro.

The re-emergence of the arts in Downtown Dallas during the late 1960s was indirectly a result of a single event that remains a scar on the city’s history: the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.15 Dallas became known as the City of Hate, as the nation blamed it for the tragedy. Arlinda Abbott describes the atmosphere:

[It was a] tormented town. . . . When . . . Kennedy was assassinated, . . . Dallas’ pride in her civic center was in jeopardy. The proud cradle of the city’s history suddenly became a murder site recognized throughout the world. Public opinion polls, conducted shortly after the assassination, indicated over 80 percent of Americans had indicted “the people of Dallas” for the crime. . . . After the assassination, Dallas residents were harassed—telephone operators disconnected long-distance calls and restaurants refused service.16

In 1964, newly elected Mayor Erik Jonsson proposed Goals for Dallas, a program to revitalize the city’s image that was put into place by 1966 with the help of prominent citizens.17 One of the most important goals was this one: “We demand a city of beauty and functional fitness that embraces the quality of life for all its people."18 In 1967 Jonsson persuaded the citizens of Dallas to pass a $175 million bond issue to finance the construction of three civic buildings: the Dallas City Hall, the Dallas Convention Center, and the Dallas Central Library.19 To launch the rebranding of Dallas, city officials commissioned architect I. M. Pei to design City Hall.20 Over the next decade, Pei designed four more buildings for Downtown Dallas.21

The 1970s

The decade of the 1970s saw significant change in Downtown, both in infrastructure and in the arts. The city center began to grow vertically, as construction on some of the city’s most recognizable skyscrapers was started or completed. Several areas were revitalized amid the demolition and new construction, notably the West End Historic District (then described as the warehouse district of Downtown) and the Government District on the southern edge of Downtown.

Pei’s horizontal design for City Hall at 1500 Marilla Street included a large plaza with a circular pool and group of oak trees that faced the cantilevered façade. After completion of the building in 1977, discussion of a sculpture commission for the plaza began and soon centered on the British sculptor Henry Moore. After meetings among Pei, Moore, city official George Schrader, and local arts patrons, Moore was offered the commission. The sculptor had a congenial relationship with local art collectors Raymond and Patsy Nasher and with Dallas Museum of Fine Arts board member Margaret McDermott, who were all instrumental in securing the commission.22 Moore’s large-scale Three-Piece Sculpture: Vertebrae (The Dallas Piece) (Fig. 2) was installed in 1978.

Reaction to Dallas’ first major public sculpture was mostly positive, although one city official was initially resistant. Even before the work was in place, City Councilman William Cothrum bemoaned the choice of Moore, fearing that the sculpture would be too avant-garde for Texans: “The few works I’ve seen by the man . . . I’m not impressed with. . . . They’re a little too abstract to me and probably the average Dallas citizen. . . . I like things with a little more straight lines and rectangles, but that’s probably just my background in civil engineering.”23 His remarks were picked up by the Associated Press and published in the New York Times, making Dallas appear to the nation as conservative and closed-minded to contemporary art. In spite of Cothrum’s comments, the overall public reaction to the Moore piece encouraged the City of Dallas to continue with the idea of art in public places.24

Once City Hall was completed, Dallas began to showcase local art talent there. In 1978, the City Hall Arts Committee organized Dallas Art ’78, which opened March 11 (Fig. 3). The 11-member committee, chaired by Irvin Levy, was a mix of Dallas arts benefactors, gallery owners, and artists, including Margaret McDermott, Billie Marcus, John D. Murchison, Arthello Beck, and Donald Vogel.25 The committee selected 40 Dallas artists to display their work in the corridors and lobby of the new building for the entire year.26 The concept was repeated the following year with Dallas Art ’79, although aspects of the program were adjusted. A three-member jury—Dallasite Paul Rogers Harris, director of the Waco Art Center; John Palmer Leeper, director of the McNay Art Institute in San Antonio; and Fort Worth Art Museum curator Marge Goldwater—selected work by 42 artists from a pool of more than 300 entries. The judges also awarded six prizes with funding from the Billie Marcus Memorial Fund27 of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. Award winners included painters Richard Shaffer28 and Jill Glover,29 photographer Daniel Barsotti,30 and sculptors Mac Whitney,31 Herb Rogalla,32 and Raffaele Martini.33

The third Dallas Art exhibition at City Hall—Dallas Art III—was the most controversial, and consequently it would be the last (Fig. 4). Jurors Ron Gleason, director of the Tyler Museum of Art; Linda Cathcart, director of the Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston; and John Biggers, Houston-based artist and educator, reviewed 1,200 slides of work by more than 200 artists, but they were unable to select an exhibition because it was their collective opinion that the entries lacked quality. Gleason noted that the jurors “realized we were faced with pretty poor quality, and when we went back through the slides another time, we decided it would be a disservice to show the few good works submitted in that important a space or in company with other works of lesser quality.”34 Unwilling to abandon the project, Cultural Affairs Division35 administrators hastily organized a second jury, consisting of Laurence Scholder, Dallas printmaker and SMU professor; Lyle Novinski, local artist and chairman of the University of Dallas art department; and Deborah Papathanasiou, owner and director of the local Frontroom Craft Gallery.36 The second jury was able to select 60 works by 51 artists and award prizes to Linnea Glatt,37 David McCullough,38 Ann Lee Stautberg,39 Gilda Pervin,40 Dianne Taylor, and Jennie Haddad.41 Although the exhibition did get off the ground, the controversy prevented a wary Cultural Affairs Division from sponsoring the project for a fourth year.42

Developing an Arts District

In 1977, the City of Dallas and nine cultural groups hired urban planner Kevin Lynch of Carr, Lynch Associates in Boston to investigate ways to revitalize Dallas’ business-centered downtown.43 Lynch concluded that the city would benefit from having all of its cultural institutions situated in one easily accessible place. The report concluded that “most of the city-wide arts institutions should in time relocate to a central location downtown for better access to all members of the community and because this best fits the needs of the institutions themselves.”44 The specific location—the north side of the Central Business District—was selected over areas like Fair Park for its neutral status: “It is accessible to everyone, is nobody’s turf, provides good public transportation, and might make downtown come alive 24 hours rather than just during the day.”45

At the time of the study, the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts was looking for a new location. The building had been expanded in 1965 under director Merrill Rueppel, but it was still too small to accommodate the growing collection and exhibition program. The Museum needed larger quarters, and director Harry S. Parker III was determined to see it happen. With the results of the study, Parker and the DMFA Board had a suggested location for the city’s new cultural hub. But the 1978 defeat of a bond proposal to fund new buildings for the DMFA and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the renovation of the Majestic Theatre threatened to end the idea of an Arts District.46 In anticipation of passing a revised bond package, the DMFA obtained options on key tracts of land in the area suggested by Carr, Lynch and accrued private financial commitments totaling several million dollars. A nonstop promotional media campaign raised public awareness of the revised program and helped ensure a victory (Fig. 5). The Museum moved forward quickly after voters approved the $24.8 million bond issue in November 1979.47 The Dallas Arts District was born in 1984 when the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts—renamed the Dallas Museum of Art—moved into its new building on North Harwood Street, designed by world-renowned architect Edward Larrabee Barnes.48

The 1980s

For several years, the Dallas Museum of Art was the only cultural institution in the developing Arts District.49 Even before the Museum opened to the public, curators and staff were readying the new space through acquisitions, promised gifts, and major commissions. Sue Graze had been appointed contemporary curator after Robert Murdock departed in 1978.50 Graze joined the DMFA in 1976 as a Rockefeller Fellow in the education department and stayed on, working in the department of the registrar and with Murdock. In her new role as curator in 1981, she implemented the long-standing Concentrations series of small exhibitions, which surveyed the depth and range of contemporary artists’ work. The series was well under way by the time the DMA opened in the Arts District.51 The first Concentrations show there was large-scale sculpture by Dalton Maroney, installed in the new sculpture garden.52 Working with architect Barnes, Graze was actively involved in commissioning site-specific works for the building from Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen (Fig. 6), Scott Burton,53 Richard Fleischner,54 Ellsworth Kelly (Fig. 7), and Sol LeWitt (Fig. 8). During her tenure, she helped expand the permanent contemporary art collections with major acquisitions of works by internationally recognized artists Carl Andre,55 Martin Puryear (Fig. 9), Mario Merz,56 Robert Mapplethorpe,57 Chris Burden (Fig. 10), and Richard Prince,58 as well by local artists Nic Nicosia,59 David Bates (Fig. 11), Willard Watson, “The Texas Kid” (Fig. 12), Bill Komodore,60 and Billy Hassell.61 She also oversaw major career retrospectives on Elizabeth Murray (1987), Cindy Sherman (1988), Donald Judd (1989), and Texas-based James Surls (1985).

Though the DMA was the dominant institution in the new Arts District, small galleries and studios occupied several buildings around Downtown. Dallas artist and librarian John Held Jr. founded Modern Realism Archive and Gallery in 1982 with his future wife Paula Barber as an alternative exhibition venue and research center for avant-garde cultural activity.62 Modern Realism became the center of eclectic programs, from exhibitions of stamps and artist books to a “devival” by the parody religion Church of the Sub-Genius (Fig. 13). Held’s involvement in mail art—a worldwide movement in which artists use the postal system to exchange visual art—connected Dallas to the international art community. His gallery collaborated with other Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex venues, like Club Dada, and hosted the retrospective of the letters of the prominent mail artist Ray Johnson.

On the 100th anniversary of artist Marcel Duchamp’s birthday in July 1987, Held hosted major international mail and performance artists Ryosuke Cohen and Shozo Shimamoto. While in Dallas, the duo put on performances at Club Dada in Deep Ellum and at the DMA in Horchow Auditorium. Their Club Dada performance was an homage to Duchamp. The two artists cut off all of Held’s hair, then pasted it onto his head in the shape of a star, a reverse reference to Duchamp’s self-portrait photograph Tonsure, 1921. At the DMA, Shimamoto did a performance piece titled Peace Networking on the Head, in which slides and 8 mm films of artworks were projected onto his bald head (Fig. 14). Held recalls these performances:

The first one [performance] I did at Club Dada was the Duchamp Centennial performance. We showed Shozo Shimamoto and Ryosuke Cohen. . . . And this is where Ryosuke Cohen cut off all my hair and then Shozo pasted the hair back onto my head in the shape of a star, which was an homage to Duchamp who did something the same—shaved a star into his head in one of his performances. So, that was 1987.

I think that was like on Saturday evening, if I’m not mistaken, at Club Dada. And then the following day, I think it was a Sunday, I believe, we went to the Dallas Museum of Art and just went to the auditorium, and there were a lot of mail artists who came from Houston and Austin and elsewhere to meet Shozo.

I mean he was a very well-known artist who was primarily known only in mail art circles at that time and only recently is gaining a measure of acknowledgment for his participation through time. But we did a performance with him at the Museum.

He had a shaved head, and he would let people do things on his head—rubber stamp or draw or paste things, whatever you wanted to do. He was like an open medium for people.63

Modern Realism moved to a flatiron-style building at 1903 McMillan Avenue, where exhibitions were held in a room and hallways on the second floor. The gallery closed in 1994 when Held and Barber divorced. A year later, Held moved to San Francisco, where he currently resides. The John Held Jr. Collection of Mail Art Periodicals—consisting of catalogues, posters, periodicals, zines, and the largest U.S. collection of secondary sources—was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art Library, New York, and the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.

Held was also founder and director of the Video Art Study Group at the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library in Downtown Dallas, where he worked as an arts librarian. Beginning in 1983, the group met monthly to view and discuss the latest developments in video art (Fig. 15). Using contacts he had made as a video librarian in New York State, Held brought in classic works like Nam June Paik’s You Can’t Lick Postcard Stamps in China and Bill Viola’s Chott El-djerd, giving interested Dallasites a taste of the ever-expanding world of video and new media art.64 Local video artist and enthusiast Bart Weiss was an active member of the group. In 1986, Held and Weiss organized a three-day festival—held concurrently at the Central Library and the Dallas Museum of Art—that would become the Video Association of Dallas’ annual VideoFest. That year, the DMA hosted two screenings: The Best of Dallas Video Art, which featured video works by Dallas artists James Chefchis, David Dowe, Jerry Hunt, John Leveranz, Victor Dada, Farley Scott, and others; and Video Art by Leading National Independent Producers, which included the world premiere of William Wegman’s The World of Photography and works by Steina and Woody Vasulka, John Sanborn, Skip Blumberg, Max Almy, and Ed Emshwiller. The Central Library had on view the Vasulkas’ six-monitor video installation The West.65

The first Dallas Video Festival, Rewinding into the Future, was held over four days in the fall of 1987, offering workshops, video installations, and numerous screenings of video work by local and international artists. Organized by Bart Weiss, it was designed “to trace the history of the video medium from the early days of television to the present, with a hint at what Weiss called ‘the technology of the future.’”66 Highlights included a program on the Pee-wee Herman Playhouse and the Dallas premieres of Jean-Luc Godard’s feature-length video Grandeur et Decadence and Ant Farm collective’s docudrama The Eternal Frame, which featured a reenactment of the John F. Kennedy assassination. In conjunction with the festival, video installations were on view throughout Dallas at venues like the downtown Neiman Marcus department store windows, with work by David Merkel; the University of Texas at Dallas, with work by Tom Giebink; and the Central Library, with work by Tom Grace.

The annual Dallas VideoFest continues to bring cutting-edge video and new media work to the city. From the beginning, it has maintained a close connection to works by Texas artists through The Texas Show, a juried compilation of short-form works. The festival has been held in various places throughout the area, but it returned to the Dallas Museum of Art for its 25th anniversary in September 2012. In keeping with the first festival, the program took video art out of the museum and into the city. The larger-than-life installation Expanded Cinema used the curved walls of the Omni Hotel in Downtown Dallas as its screen.67 Curated by Bart Weiss, Carolyn Sortor, and Michael Morris, the video program had a simulcast soundtrack available on a local radio station and could be experienced from multiple viewpoints around the city.

Real estate prices in Downtown Dallas have prevented the area from becoming a truly viable place for artists to live and work. The nearby, affordable neighborhoods of Deep Ellum, Fair Park–South Dallas, and Oak Cliff historically have attracted more artists. The exception was the Screw Products Artist Studios, located at 1700 Routh Street in the southeast corner of the developing Arts District, where a group of artists converted a large two-story warehouse into partitioned studios. Painter Nadara Goodwin was one of the first to move her studio into the space in 1983 after securing the building with the help of a few other artists.68 She recalls that “the windows were all broken out, and the tin roof was banging. The owner told me if I could get five others to move in, he'd rent it. I must have dragged 20 artists through here, but none of them would take a chance. Finally I got three.”69 Though they were not allowed to live in the building, they were the only artists working in the Arts District. Screw Products Artist Studios lasted for several years until developers began eyeing the property for expansion. A midrise apartment complex eventually took its place.

The 1990s

The Arts District continued to be the main arts attraction in Downtown Dallas through the 1990s, but pockets of activity could be found in other areas. Small exhibitions were staged at the Downtown Central Library, and short-lived galleries like N. NO. 0 Gallery70 and the Bell Plaza Gallery at the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company71 provided alternatives to major DMA exhibitions.

After Sue Graze’s resignation in 1990, DMA director Richard R. Brettell appointed Annegreth Nill as curator of contemporary art in 1991. During Nill’s tenure, the Concentrations series was suspended and replaced temporarily by Encounters, a six-chapter series that paired internationally known artists with Texas counterparts.72 The program furthered the DMA’s commitment to local artists by giving them the opportunity to work with international stars while having their work shown in the Museum. Pairings included John Hernandez with Rainer Ganahl,73 Doug MacWithey with Cady Noland,74 and Tracy Hicks with Damien Hirst.75 Major acquisitions during Nill’s tenure included work by Christopher Wool (Fig. 16), Georg Herold,76 David Hammons,77 and Anish Kapoor (Fig. 17).

When Nill stepped down in 1995, two curators were hired to lead the expanding contemporary art department: Charles Wylie in the newly endowed position of The Lupe Murchison Curator of Contemporary Art and Suzanne Weaver as assistant curator of contemporary art.78 Wylie reinstated the Concentrations series in 1996 with the video installation of Matthew McCaslin (November 21, 1996–January 19, 1997), representing the museum’s renewed commitment to Graze’s series as well as a new direction in the contemporary art program. The 1990s were an exciting time for the contemporary art department. The Contemporary Art Initiative—which drew together support from local collectors79—enabled the Museum to advance its activity in contemporary art programs, exhibitions, and acquisitions. The annual contemporary art auction TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art, established in 1999 as a partnership between the DMA and amFAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, raises significant funds for both organizations, allowing the Museum to take on major exhibitions and develop its permanent collections.

Into the 21st Century

The dream of an Arts District and a lively downtown, decades in the making, took shape in the new century. With three major visual art institutions in such close proximity—the DMA, the Nasher Sculpture Center, and the Latino Cultural Center—Downtown Dallas came into its own as an art destination. The DMA celebrated its centennial in 2003 with two contemporary exhibitions. To emphasize the Museum’s relationship to Texas art and artists, Suzanne Weaver, with Lane Relyea, organized Come Forward: Emerging Art in Texas, featuring the work of 11 artists. Charles Wylie, with Weaver and Dorothy Kosinski, senior curator of painting and sculpture, organized Celebrating Sculpture to welcome the Nasher Sculpture Center to the Arts District.80

Also in 2003, the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs dedicated the Latino Cultural Center in a new building on the northern edge of Downtown at Good-Latimer Expressway and Live Oak Street. The center had generated support from private donations and a voter-approved bond issue in 1995, but construction delays and rising costs had postponed the completion of its building. The 27,000-square-foot facility has a 300-seat theater, an art gallery, and sculpture courtyards where local and regional artists promote and display Latino and Hispanic arts and culture. Among its programs are an annual juried exhibition, Hecho en Dallas, which showcases the work of artists from Dallas and North Texas. Artists in past exhibitions have included Rosemary Meza-DesPlas, Ricardo Paniagua, and Bernardo Diaz.

With the continued support of its Contemporary Art Initiative, the DMA acquired several major pieces during the 1990s and 2000s, including works by Anselm Kiefer (Fig. 18), Sigmar Polke (Fig. 19), Gerhard Richter (Fig. 20), Matthew Barney,81 Bruce Nauman,82 Charles Ray (Fig. 21), and Robert Smithson (Fig. 22). A major moment in the Museum’s history came in 2005, with the bequests of the entire collections of Cindy and Howard Rachofsky, Deedie and Rusty Rose, and Marguerite and Robert Hoffman. To acknowledge these unprecedented gifts—which include all future acquisitions and will enter the Museum over time—the DMA organized the 2007 exhibition Fast Forward: Contemporary Collections for the Dallas Museum of Art, which featured major works from the three collections as a preview of what is to come.83

The DMA continues to show support for local and regional artists through several competitive grants. In 1980, it created the Clare Hart DeGolyer Memorial Fund and the Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund to recognize talent in emerging and professional artists. The DeGolyer grant is awarded to artists between the ages of 15 and 25 residing in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, or Colorado, while the Kimbrough grant is awarded to artists under age 30 residing in Texas. In 1990, the DMA created the Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Grant in memory of two Dallas artists. The grant provides funding for domestic or foreign travel and is awarded to professional artists age 30 or older who live in Texas. As former Dallas art dealer Eugene Binder noted, "It's something very special. I don't know of other cities who have privately endowed funds for this purpose. This lends another means of support over and above simply selling a painting or a sculpture.”84

Since 1980, the DMA has awarded more than 230 grants to artists totaling more than $500,000. Many recipients have had successful art careers, including Jeff Elrod, David Bates, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Melissa Miller, Helen Altman, Annette Lawrence, Ludwig Schwarz, Brian Fridge, John Pomara, Courtney Brown, Linnea Glatt, and Rosemary Meza-DesPlas (Fig. 23).

Suzanne Weaver and Charles Wylie both left the museum by the end of the first decade of the 2000s. Jeffrey Grove, appointed as the newly endowed Hoffman Family Senior Curator in 2009, has overseen acquisitions of work by artists including Jack Whitten (Fig. 24), Karel Funk,85 Maurizio Cattelan (Fig. 25), Johannes Kahrs,86 Bojan Šarčević (Fig. 26), Michelangelo Pistoletto,87 and Lee Ufan (Fig. 27) and organized major exhibitions including Re-Seeing the Contemporary: Selected from the Collection (October 15, 2010–March 20, 2011); Silence and Time (May 29–August 28, 2011); and Variations on Theme: Contemporary Art 1950s–Present (July 7, 2012–January 27, 2013). Grove also reconstituted the Concentrations series, beginning with Concentrations 54: Matt Connors and Fergus Feehily (April 3–August 14, 2011). In 2012, recognizing the opportunity to expand the collections into the realm of contemporary Japanese art, the Museum appointed Gabriel Ritter as The Nancy and Tim Hanley Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art. The DMA is now poised to develop a contemporary collection that is singular in quality and scope.

Over 20 years, the Arts District has added the Crow Collection of Asian Art (1998); Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (2008); the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre (2009); the Dallas City Performance Hall (2012); Klyde Warren Park (2012); and the Perot Museum of Nature and Science (2012).

Adding to the infrastructure of the Arts District and Downtown Dallas are events like the annual Dallas Art Fair, the Aurora Project, and Arts District Block Parties. The Dallas Art Fair, created in 2008 by developer John Sughrue and art dealer Chris Byrne, brings national and international galleries, art dealers, curators, and artists to the city for a week of art and commerce at the Fashion Industry Gallery on Ross Avenue. The first fair in 2009 had 30 exhibitors from 12 cities and featured contemporary paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, and photography from internationally recognized artists like Chuck Close, Sol LeWitt, and Damien Hirst.88 By the fourth year, the exhibitor list had doubled, with 70 galleries from all over the world. While the Dallas Art Fair is primarily geared toward collectors (with works selling in the $2,000 to $1 million range), the event brings an influx of international collectors, curators, and dealers who want to explore what Dallas’ galleries have to offer.

The fair has also become a catalyst for citywide arts activity. In 2012, the Dallas Contemporary launched its conceptual take on the idea of a biennial exhibition with the citywide Dallas Biennale, which featured site-specific installations all over Dallas during the week of the fair.89 The local artist collective Dick Higgins90 held its own version of a biennial, DB12 Volume 1, installed in the back room of Oliver Francis Gallery in Deep Ellum. Co-curator Michael Mazurek described it as “not a critique per se, but rather a multidisciplinary approach to curatorial jockeying. DB12 is also a hybrid: part event, part data, part research, part publication. It will probably be viewed in hindsight as the preface to a much larger catalog.”91 The exhibition, which had a strong online presence, was a concise international survey that included work by Artur Barrio, Guillaume Leblon, Sharon Ya’ari, Asger Carlsen, George Horner, and Michael Vorfeld, installed in a 300-square-foot space.92 Also in 2012, artists of the Shamrock Hotel Studios in Deep Ellum organized The Fallas Dart Air, an exhibition featuring 16 local artists.93 Both DB12 and Fallas Dart Air repeated their efforts for the 2013 Dallas Art Fair, with DB12 Volume 294 and Fallas Dart Air 2013: Low and Slow at Mama Faye’s BBQ95 representing local artists’ take on the increasingly popular annual event.

Shane Pennington established the Aurora Project in 2010 as a vehicle for interactive new media artworks—light, video, performance, and sound—installed in multiple locations. Originally situated in Dallas Heritage Village just south of Downtown, the Aurora Project moved to the Arts District in 2011 and attracted more than 15,000 participants and viewers. It is considered one of the nation’s largest outdoor exhibitions of new media art.

Rounding out activities in the Arts District is the quarterly Block Party presented by the DMA, the Nasher Sculpture Center, and the Crow Collection of Asian Art. The three institutions stay open until midnight at no charge and offer live music, lectures, performances, and other special programming.

New residential properties like Museum Tower—geared toward wealthier arts patrons—and Flora Street Lofts—affordable live-work studios for artists—ensure that the Arts District will soon live up to its potential as a true community where artists and patrons mingle. It is the nation’s largest contiguous Arts District and the pride of Dallas.

Downtown Dallas districts are: Arts District, City Center District, Convention Center District, Farmers Market District, Government District, Main Street District, Reunion District, and West End Historic District.

Neiman Marcus opened the Decorative Galleries in 1929 as a way of moving into the interior design and decorator market. Art and antiques were sourced in Europe and installed as period rooms on the fourth floor. Mary Carter Toomey, “Le Vieux Carré Galleries of Interior Decoration to Give New Beauty to Neiman-Marcus,” Dallas Morning News, October 13, 1929, 7. Examples of major exhibitions staged there include Rockwell Kent Lithographs (Staff, “Kent Exhibit Will Open at Neiman-Marcus,” Dallas Morning News, October 23, 1933, 6); Works by Paul Gauguin (Peggy Louise Jones, “Seven Originals by French Artist to Be Exhibited,” Dallas Morning News, January 20, 1948, 4; Staff, “Gotham Dealers Lend Exhibit,” Dallas Morning News, January 23, 1948, 12); and Twelve Paintings by Pablo Picasso (Rual Askew, “Twelve Oils by Picasso to Be Shown,” Dallas Morning News, September 30, 1948, 5).

The Gauguin show was organized by Stanley Marcus, executive vice-president of Neiman Marcus, who came up with the idea while planning a Gauguin fashion collection on the centenary of the painter’s birth. It included five oil paintings (Paysage de Bretagne, 1883; Nativity, 1902; Poèmes Barbares, 1896; Dr. Gachet, 1884; and Tahitian Flowers, n.d.), along with a gouache (Les Folies, 1900), two lithographs (Peasant Girls in Brittany and Misères Humaines), four woodcuts (Te Faruru, Enlèvement d’Europe, Manao Tupapau, and L’Universe Est Crée), and two low-relief wall carvings (O Tahiti and Taiheaiteienei Ao). All works were on loan from New York art dealers Kleeman Galleries and Weyhe Gallery and the private collection of Edward G. Robinson.

The Picasso exhibition was the first showing of the artist’s work in Texas and was organized by Samuel M. Kootz, Picasso’s American dealer. The 12 canvases were Seated Woman, 1929; Cock and Knife, 1949; Woman, 1947; Still Life with Coffee Pot, 1947; Sailor, 1943; Owl and Arrow, 1947; Still Life with Skull and Pitcher, 1945; Concierge’s Daughter with Doll, 1947; Head, 1944; The Glass, 1947; Still Life with Mirror, 1943; and Blue Owl, 1947.

For background on the rise of the department store art gallery, see Jan Whitaker, Service and Style: How the American Department Store Fashioned the Middle Class (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2006) and chapter 3 in Mark Howard Moss, Shopping as an Entertainment Experience (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2007).

Preston Shopping Center, completed by 1950, was the premiere shopping center in North Dallas until the completion of NorthPark Center, which opened in August 1965. NorthPark provided increased competition and also managed to steal away the Neiman Marcus store that had been located at Preston Center from 1951 to 1965. Staff, “NorthPark Sets Formal Opening,” Dallas Morning News, August 15, 1965, 1; Staff, “Hardware Concern Builds Store in Preston Center,” Dallas Morning News, February 26, 1950, 1; Staff, “Neiman-Marcus Co. Starts $5,000,000 Expansion Program,” Dallas Morning News, March 26, 1950, 1.

See the DallasSITES essay on Uptown, paragraph 11, for more information on the merger of the Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts and the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. 

For more about contemporary art in Uptown, see the DallasSITES essay on Uptown. 

Rual Askew, “Bold New Showcase—Downtown,” Dallas Morning News, August 3, 1962, 5.

Valley House Gallery was established in 1954. According to a press release dated December 27, 1958, “Valley House came into existence in 1954, the inheritor of the policies and traditions of the pioneering Betty McLean Gallery, which closed in that year.” Valley House Gallery Records, 1941–1979, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Staff, “Art Gallery Due in One Main Place,” Dallas Morning News, November 28, 1968; John Neville, “Artists: A Happening at Main Place Plaza,” Dallas Morning News, December 6, 1968, 18.

See the Valley House website for an exhibition history for Main Place Gallery.

The Dallas chapter of Artists Equity was established in the early 1970s by a group interested in protecting their rights as artists while urging museums and galleries to give local artists greater access. During its decade-long existence, the chapter included such leading local artists as Arthur and Jeanne Koch, Chapman Kelley, Will Hipps, and Richard Childers.

Janet Kutner, “Gallery to Assist Dallas Artists,” Dallas Morning News, October 4, 1978, 23.

Janet Kutner, “Variety Is the Spice of Art,” Dallas Morning News, July 17, 1979, 21.

The Dallas County Junior College District was the original name of the Dallas County Community College District (DCCCD), which now includes seven campuses: Brookhaven, Cedar Valley, Eastfield, Mountainview, Northlake, and Richland. El Centro is the only campus within the city center. See the DallasSITES essay on university communities for more about DCCCD.

President Kennedy’s motorcade passed through the area on its way to the Dallas Trade Mart, and the assassination occurred on the edge of the West End Historic District.

Arlinda Abbott, Dealey Plaza: The Front Door of Dallas (Dallas: Sixth Floor Museum, 2003), 41.

Francis Raffetto, “Jonsson Expands on Goals Project,” Dallas Morning News, December 3, 1964, 18.

Quoted in Steven H. Miller, “Engineering a Pei Cantilever: Dallas City Hall,” Architecture Week, July 29, 2009, B2.1 (viewed on May 21, 2013).

As Pauline Rose explains in her essay on Henry Moore and his relationship to Dallas: “The genesis of Dallas’ new City Hall can be traced back to the year following President Kennedy’s assassination. In the attempt to rehabilitate Dallas the Goals for Dallas initiative was announced in November 1964 and ‘involved brainstorming by thousands of Dallasites from all sectors to establish common goals. . . .’ The Goals for Dallas programme was still ‘live’ when Moore’s sculpture was installed at the City Hall in 1978. . . . Jonsson intended the new City Hall to be symbolic of Dallas citizens.” Pauline Rose, “Henry Moore in Dallas 1965–1984,” Sculpture Journal 17, no. 1 (2008): 58–59.

Mayor Jonsson may also have believed a new city hall was important as a symbolic and psychological replacement for the city hall building in which Jack Ruby shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald. See also Bert Holmes, “A Man of Vision and Accomplishments: A Tribute to Erik Jonsson” (Dallas: Texas Instruments, 1996) (viewed on May 21, 2013).

Pauline Rose, “Henry Moore in Dallas 1965–1984,” Sculpture Journal 17, no. 1 (2008): 59.

Other I. M. Pei buildings in Dallas are One Dallas Center, 350 North St. Paul Street, 1979; Energy Plaza, originally the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO), 1601 Bryan Street, 1983; Fountain Place, 1445 Ross Avenue, 1986; and the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, 2301 Flora Street, 1989. Leslie Wagner, “Dallas Is Infused with the Modern Architecture of I. M. Pei,” examiner.com, March 24, 2009 (viewed on April 5, 2013). 

Pauline Rose, “Henry Moore in Dallas 1965–1984,” Sculpture Journal 17, no. 1 (2008): 61.

Quoted in Pauline Rose, “Henry Moore in Dallas 1965–1984,” Sculpture Journal 17, no. 1 (2008): 64.

The City of Dallas has had a spotty history of placing works of art in public places. Early installations tended to be sculptural memorials or monuments with military or armed services themes. In 1896, the Confederate Monument, by San Antonio artist Frank Teich, was installed in the Old City Park (moved to Pioneer Park Cemetery in the Convention Center District). Other works of art installed as monuments include the Fireman’s Monument, installed in Old City Park in 1902 (moved to Fair Park), and the George Bannerman Dealey Memorial, by Felix de Weldon, installed in Dealey Plaza in 1948.

It was not until 1955 that the idea of art in public places shifted to less traditional works. In that year, nationally recognized Italian-born artist Harry Bertoia installed the abstract metal sculpture Textured Screen in the new Dallas Public Library. The work aroused controversy when several Dallas city officials made derogatory remarks. Mayor R. L. Thornton said, “It looks to me just like a bunch of junk painted up. Besides, it looks like a cheap welding job.” Mayor pro tem Vernon A. Smith commented, “People will come in and forget what they came for when they see that bunch of junk.” And Councilman J. R. Terry said, “I guess I haven’t been educated up to it. I hate to be a party to seeing the taxpayer’s money spent like that, but I guess there’s nothing we can do about it now. It certainly didn’t have official approval of the Council.” Allen Quinn, “Mayor Comments on Gilded Mural,” Dallas Morning News, June 28, 1955, 1.

After these disparaging remarks, the library’s architect, George L. Dahl, who commissioned the sculpture with the approval of the Library Board, purchased the screen and had it delivered to his private residence in Dallas, relieving taxpayers of the burden. As Dallas Morning News reporter Allen Quinn noted, “Removal of the mural was surrounded in mystery. Workmen of the McKee Construction Company, library contractor, refused photographers entrance into the new building when it was discovered the mural was being taken down.” Allen Quinn, “Library Architect Purchases Mural: What-Is-It Carted to Dahl Home,” Dallas Morning News, July 9, 1955, 1.

Within weeks of the removal of the work, 71 prominent Dallas citizens raised the funds to purchase the work from Dahl and have it reinstalled in the library above the circulation desk. They included Mrs. Alex Camp (for whom the Alexander Calder, Flower, 1949, was commissioned and given to the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts), Mr. and Mrs. Edward Marcus (Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts board members, 1956–1963), Mrs. George Works Jr., Mr. Waldo Stewart, Mr. and Mrs. Angus Wynne Jr., Miss Ela Hockaday, Mr. Leon Harris (of Sanger Harris department store), Mr. Stanley Marcus (of Neiman Marcus department store), Mr. and Mrs. Hermes Nye (Mary Nye of Nye Galleries), Mrs. Thomas (Betty) Blake, J. O. Lambert Jr., and Sue Connally. “Letter Reveals Mural’s Friends,” Dallas Morning News, August 6, 1955, 1. The work remained on view and was the only symbol from the old library to be moved to the new J. Erik Jonsson Central Library, completed in 1982. Stanley Marcus, “Dallas’ Progress in Art,” Dallas Morning News, May 18, 1993, 17A.

Mayor Robert S. Folsom appointed the City Hall Arts Committee on July 26, 1978, in recognition of the completion of the Dallas City Hall building. The members were: Irvin Levy (chairman), Arthello Beck, Bill Burford, Carolyn Foxworth, Billie Marcus, Margaret McDermott, John D. Murchison, Harry S. Parker III, Raymond Phillips, Sidney Stahl, and Donald S. Vogel.

Janet Kutner, “City Hall Art Exhibit Raises Mixed Feelings,” Dallas Morning News, March 19, 1978, 69.

Billie Marcus, wife of Stanley Marcus and an original member of the City Hall Arts Committee, died in 1978.

Richard Shaffer was born in Fresno, California, in 1947 and attended the University of California—Santa Cruz, the New School for Social Research in New York City, and Stanford University. In 1981, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts contemporary curator Sue Graze selected Shaffer to inaugurate the Museum’s Concentrations series. He was also given a solo exhibition at the Dallas gallery Eugene Binder in 1989. Janet Kutner, “Preview,” Dallas Morning News, September 15, 1989, 39.

Jill Glover was born in New York City and graduated from the School of Visual Arts there. She lived in Dallas for a time, returning in the 1980s to New York, where she currently resides.

Daniel Barsotti studied photography at Southern Methodist University in the mid-1970s. He remained a resident of Dallas, photographing the city and its people as part of the federal CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act) program. Barsotti also photographed work and exhibitions for the Dallas Museum of Art and was an active member of the local art scene, exhibiting at the Allen Street Gallery and DW Gallery and photographing installations and exhibitions for Carol Taylor Gallery. Barsotti now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, continuing his work as a professional photographer.

Mac Whitney was born August 3, 1936, in Manhattan, Kansas. He moved to Texas in 1969 after completing BFA and MFA degrees in Kansas. Known primarily for his large-scale abstract sculptures made of steel and found objects such as farming equipment, Whitney has been making sculpture for commission and public art projects since the 1970s and continues to work in his studio near Ovilla, Texas, outside of Dallas.

Herb Rogalla (1925–2006) was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and moved to Dallas in 1940. He took classes at the DMFA Museum School and earned his BFA in sculpture from Southern Methodist University. He taught at St. Mark’s School of Texas for 28 years until his retirement in 1994. Herb Rogalla's work is in collections throughout the United States and has been exhibited at the DMA, the Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston, the Denver Art Museum, and the Connemara Conservancy in Plano. Janet Kutner, “Herb Rogalla, 1925–2006: Dallas Artist and Educator,” Dallas Morning News, January 25, 2006, 2G.

Raffaele Martini was born in Rome in 1937 and moved to Dallas in 1971. As a sculptor, he works in a variety of media, including aluminum, plaster, wood, and found objects. While in Dallas, Martini showed his work with Delahunty Gallery and was included in DMFA contemporary curator Robert Murdock’s Projects series (Projects III, December 19, 1975–January 11, 1976). Janet Kutner, “City Hall Goes Gallery,” Dallas Morning News, May 5, 1979, 74.

Quoted in Janet Kutner,“City Hall Goes Gallery,” Dallas Morning News, May 5, 1979, 74.

The City Arts Committee became the Division of Cultural Affairs under the Park and Recreation Department in 1976.

Janet Kutner, “Second Jury Picks More Than 60 Works,” Dallas Morning News, August 9, 1980, 68.

Linnea Glatt (b. 1949) lives and works in Dallas. She earned degrees from Moorhead State University in Minnesota and the University of Dallas (MFA 1972). Glatt was a founding member of the Dallas Women’s Co-op (later DW Gallery) and taught at Richland College (part of the Dallas County Community College District). She works in a variety of media, from her early cast-plaster wall works, to large-scale sculpture, to her delicate hand-stitched drawings on paper.

David McCullough was born in Massachusetts and attended the Kansas City Art Institute and California Institute of the Arts before arriving in Texas in the early 1970s. He has worked in a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, and performance art. McCullough lives and works in Dallas and is currently represented by Kirk Hopper Fine Art.

Ann Lee Stautberg is a Dallas-based photographer, born in Houston in 1949. She earned degrees from Texas Christian University and the University of Dallas, where she received an MFA in 1972. Stautberg was the second artist in DMFA contemporary curator Sue Graze’s Concentrations series (April 26–June 7, 1981).

Gilda Pervin’s early work included thickly encrusted three-dimensional wall reliefs, sometimes utilizing found objects like broken glass and gaudy colors. She earned degrees from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the University of Pittsburgh and moved to Dallas in the 1970s, teaching at Richland College from 1975 to 1981. She moved in 1981 to New York City, where she continues to live and work.

Jennie Haddad (1906–1995) was born in Lebanon and moved to Utah at age 5. By age 22, she had married and moved to Tyler, Texas. In 1943, Haddad and a group of friends began driving to Dallas to study with Otis Dozier at the DMFA Museum School. After traveling around the East Coast and touring Europe, in 1963 she returned to Dallas, where she lived and worked until her death in 1995. Ruth Wiseman exhibited Haddad’s work in her gallery in Deep Ellum, giving the artist a solo show in 1985. Janet Kutner, “Life Begins at 73 for Artist Haddad: University of Dallas Unveils Retrospective of This Exceptional Talent,” Dallas Morning News, October 28, 1979, 73.

The City of Dallas continued commissioning works of public art throughout the 1980s. In 1981, with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Southland Financial Corporation, it commissioned a sculpture from the light and space artist Robert Irwin. Titled Portal Park Piece (Slice), the 700-foot-long Cor-ten steel sculpture was installed in Carpenter Plaza in Downtown Dallas in a park bounded by Central Expressway, Park Street, Live Oak, and Pacific. Though the work received rave reviews from local art critic Janet Kutner, DMFA director Harry S. Parker III, and others, it has been largely ignored by the public, most likely due to its location in a relatively inaccessible area of Downtown.

The cultural groups that initiated the study were the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas Civic Opera, Dallas Civic Ballet, Dallas Theater Center, Dallas Health and Science Museum, State Fair Musicals, Shakespeare Festival of Dallas, and Theatre Three. Janet Kutner, “Downtown Districts Proposed for Location of Dallas Arts Organizations,” Dallas Morning News, July 9, 1977, D1.

Carr, Lynch Associates, A Comprehensive Arts Facilities Plan for Dallas: Prepared for the City of Dallas (1977). The report also called for a revitalization of Fair Park, saying the area “cries out for imaginative treatment and substantial investment to prevent loss of a precious Dallas resource.” Janet Kutner, “North Side Gets Nod,” Dallas Morning News, November 17, 1977, A40; Henry Tatum, “Fair Park Study Seen if Arts Facilities Moved,” Dallas Morning News, November 22, 1977, D4.

Janet Kutner, “North Side Gets Nod,” Dallas Morning News, November 17, 1977, A40.

The only item voters approved was funding for a new Dallas Central Library building, which had been a separate item on the ballot. David Dillon, “How We Got It,” Dallas Morning News, January 22, 1984, 6C. The 1978 bond package had combined three cultural institutions—the DMFA, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and the Majestic Theatre renovation—into one ballot item. By separating itself from the other institutions on the 1979 ballot, the DMFA focused voters’ attention on its need for a new building. Henry Tatum, “Bonds for the Arts Get a Second Chance,” Dallas Morning News, June 9, 1979, 47.

On separate ballots, voters approved $2.25 million toward the purchase of a new site for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and $4 million toward the major renovation of the Majestic Theatre. David Dillon, “How We Got It,” Dallas Morning News, January 22, 1984, 6C.

For further information on the bond elections of 1978 and 1979 and architect Edward Larrabee Barnes, see David Dillon, “Growing the Dallas Museum of Art” (brochure 39), and Lawrence Speck, “Edward Larrabee Barnes” (brochure 49), in Dorothy M. Kosinski, ed., Dallas Museum of Art: 100 Years (Dallas: Dallas Museum of Art, 2003).

The Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center opened in 1989 after years of looking for affordable land for the building. Nearly a decade passed before the Arts District welcomed another new institution with the opening of the Crow Collection of Asian Art in 1998.

Graze was appointed acting curator of contemporary art in 1978 and was named to the post permanently in 1981.

The first Concentrations show opened in 1981, while the Museum was still in Fair Park, with work by Richard Shaffer (March 1–April 12, 1981).

The sculpture garden opened on the occasion of Dalton Maroney’s Concentrations exhibition (October 10, 1983–February 19, 1984), two and one-half months before the DMA building opened. The inaugural installation included work from the permanent collection from the Museum’s Fair Park location as well as new site-specific commissions by sculptors Ellsworth Kelly and Scott Burton. For more information on the DMA Sculpture Garden, see Dr. Steven Nash, “The Dallas Museum of Art Sculpture Garden” (brochure 50), in Dorothy M. Kosinski, ed., Dallas Museum of Art: 100 Years (Dallas: Dallas Museum of Art, 2003).

Scott Burton, Granite Settee, 1982–1983, granite, 36 x 65 x 35 in. (91.44 cm x 1 m 65.1 cm x 88.9 cm), Dallas Museum of Art, purchase through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts with matching funds from Robert K. Hoffman, the Roblee Corporation, Laura L. Carpenter, Nancy M. O'Boyle, and an anonymous donor, object no.: 1983.55.A–F.

Richard Fleischner, Courtyard Project for the Dallas Museum of Art, 1981–1983, reconfigured by the artist for the Hamon addition, 1993, refurbished 2009, limestone, marble, wood, and plantings, 1380 x 1380 in. (3505.2 x 3505.2 cm), Dallas Museum of Art, commissioned to honor Minnie and Albert Susman on the occasion of their 50th anniversary by their children Robert F. and Anna Marie Susman Shapiro, object no.: 1983.143.

Carl Andre, Pyramid (Square Plan), 1959 (destroyed), 1970 (remade), wood (fir), overall: 68 7/8 x 31 x 31 in. (1 m 74.96 cm x 78.74 cm x 78.74 cm), Dallas Museum of Art, General Acquisitions Fund and matching funds from The 500, Inc., object no.: 1979.44.

Mario Merz, Tasmania, 1981–1982, oil, acrylic, charcoal on burlap, and neon, overall: 78 3/4 x 228 in. (200.02 x 579.12 cm), Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Agnes Gund and General Acquisitions Fund, object no.: 1988.35.

Robert Mapplethorpe, Ajitto, 1981, gelatin silver print, Dallas Museum of Art, General Acquisitions Fund, object no.: 1981.99.

Richard Prince, Untitled (Three Man’s Hands with Watches), 1979, Ektacolor prints, overall: 20 x 24 in. (50.8 x 60.96 cm), Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Fredericka Hunter and Ian Glennie, Houston, object no.: 1984.180.A–C.

Nic Nicosia, Untitled (Sam!), 1986, Cibachrome photograph, overall: 48 x 67 in. (121.92 cm x 1 m 70.18 cm), Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Meisel Photochrome Corporation, object no.: 1987.366.1.

Bill Komodore, Winter Greenhouse, 1965, oil on canvas, 55 1/8 x 82 1/8 in. (140 cm x 2 m 8.58 cm), Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Lorine and David H. Gibson, Oz and Paul Srere, Mr. and Mrs. William Dana Juett and Sandy Henry, object no.: 1986.45.

Billy Hassell, Night Fishing, 1987, pencil on paper, 29 3/4 x 44 1/4 in. (75.57 x 112.39 cm), Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Agnes Gund and General Acquisitions Fund, object no.: 1987.370.A–B.FA.

The original location for Modern Realism was 1515 Young Street, next to the Masonic Temple. John Held described the gallery in an oral history interview as

an independent study center for the alternative arts directed by artist John Held Jr. Founded in 1982, it seeks to preserve the record of contemporary avant-garde cultural activity unheralded by the mainstream. It specializes in Fluxus, mail art, performance art, and artist books and periodicals, maintaining an in-depth collection of primary and secondary source materials.

The name Modern Realism was taken from a rubber stamp found at a public library. The term signifies a warning to parents that certain materials are of a sophisticated nature for young adult readers. In this regard, the collection of the Archive poses challenging questions concerning the nature of contemporary art for those unfamiliar with unorthodox cultural activities. . . . Exhibitions have been held for such artists as Ray Johnson, Davi Det Hompson, Anna Banana, Ken Brown, and Achille Cavellini. Special thematic shows have been mounted on Fluxus, Artist Postage Stamps, Mail Art, The Church of the SubGenius, and the Yugoslavian anti-embargo art collective Cage Group. The archive contains exhaustive documentation on mail art activity from 1980 to 1995, including primary materials, exhibition catalogues, posters, periodicals, zines, and the largest collection of secondary sources (books, and magazines) about the subject in the United States. All of the materials have been listed in the book, Mail Art: An Annotated Bibliography (Scarecrow Press, 1991), compiled by the director of the archive.

The Archive contains over 600 different artist periodicals from 40 countries. The artist postage stamp collection numbers some 2,500 sheets from 500 artists. Correspondence from some 5,000 artists is maintained in both domestic and foreign files. Loans from the collection had been made to the National Postal Museums in Switzerland and France, and the National Art Library in England for major exhibitions.

Materials from the collection have been used in exhibitions in the United States and abroad. In 1995, selections from the Artist Postage Stamp Collection will begin a two-year exhibition tour under the auspices of Visual Arts Resources of Portland, Oregon. . . . The gallery was opened by myself and Paula Barber, who was then the director of the exhibitions program at the Dallas Public Library, in 1982. And we tried to focus on some things that weren’t being shown in the Dallas area at that time. As a matter of fact, I think we brought several avant-garde artistic exhibitions to Dallas for the first time, including exhibitions on Fluxus certainly and mail art, in particular Ray Johnson, which was his first show of letters in the gallery.

John Held Jr., oral history interview by Leigh Arnold, May 4, 2012, History of Contemporary Art in Dallas Oral History Collection, Dallas Museum of Art Archives.

John Held, Jr., oral history interview by Leigh Arnold, May 4, 2012, History of Contemporary Art in Dallas Oral History Collection, Dallas Museum of Art Archives.

Bart Weiss, “New Fitness Video Looks Out of Shape,” Dallas Morning News, November 11, 1984, 2C; John Held Jr., oral history interview by Leigh Arnold, May 4, 2012, History of Contemporary Art in Dallas Oral History Collection, Dallas Museum of Art Archives.

Janet Kutner, “Top Video Artworks Coming to Dallas—Library, Museum of Art to Feature Exhibits,” Dallas Morning News, July 14, 1986, 1E.

Janet Kutner, “Dallas Video Fest to ‘Rewind into the Future,’” Dallas Morning News, October 5, 1987, 5C.

Expanded Cinema featured the work of local and international video artists Kari Altmann, Frank Campagna, Tim Capper, Rebecca Carter, Brian Fridge, Jeff Gibbons, Andrea Goldman, Mona Kasra, Kyle Kondas, Phil Lamb, Shane Mecklenburger, Mike Morris, Ted Setina, Carolyn Sortor, Ron Tanferno, and Jenny Vogel.

In addition to Goodwin, the artists included clay artist Evelyn Baldwin, painters Wanda Kippenbrock and Jeanne Koch, and installation artist Tracy Hicks. Bill Marvel, “An Arts District Without Artists? Well, Not Quite. . .,” Dallas Morning News, April 3, 1988, 1C.

Quoted in Bill Marvel, “An Arts District Without Artists? Well, Not Quite. . .,” Dallas Morning News, April 3, 1988, 1C.

Short for "North Number Zero," N. NO. 0 Gallery was established in 1989 by 24-year-old Kerry Freeman. The gallery showed works by New York architect Aldo Rossi, internationally known San Ygnacio, filmmaker David Lynch, Texas artist Michael Tracy, and a host of young cutting-edge Texas talents, including Lance Letscher of Pflugerville, Tracy Harris, Linda Ridgway, and David Szafranski of Dallas, and Thomas Glassford of Laredo. The gallery closed in 1991.

Opened in the late 1980s, the Telephone Pioneer Museum focused on the evolution of the telephone from invention to present to future. The museum also hosted exhibitions in the Bell Plaza Gallery organized by community groups and artist organizations, including the all-female artist collective WAVE, active in the 1990s, and the Latino group Artists Relating Together and Exhibiting (ARTE). The gallery was closed by 1993.

There were no Concentrations exhibitions from 1992 through 1995.

Encounters 1: John Hernandez and Rainer Ganahl, February 23–April 19, 1992.

Encounters 3: Cady Noland and Doug MacWithey, May 9–July 4, 1993.

Encounters 5: Damien Hirst and Tracy Hicks, July 9–October 2, 1994.

Georg Herold, 100 Years of May 1st, 1985, wood, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Wendy Garrett via the Alvin and Lucy Owsley Foundation, and an anonymous donor, object no.: 1993.2.

David Hammons, Ivory Spirit, 1990, metal, cotton, netting, silk, pearls, overall: 86 x 48 x 16 in. (218.44 x 121.92 x 40.64 cm), Dallas Museum of Art, gift of two anonymous donors, Ms. Judy Pollock, and the General Acquisitions Fund, object no.: 1994.50.

In 2005, Weaver’s position was endowed as The Nancy and Tim Hanley Associate Curator of Contemporary Art.

Additional support is provided through the Contemporary Art Initiative through the gifts of Arlene and John Dayton, Claire Dewar, Jennifer and John Eagle, Amy and Vernon Faulconer, Kenny Goss, Tim Hanley, Julie and Ed Hawes, Marguerite Steed Hoffman, The Karpidas Foundation, Cynthia and Forrest Miller, Janelle and Alden Pinnell, Allen and Kelli Questrom, Cindy and Howard Rachofsky, Catherine and Will Rose, Deedie and Rusty Rose, Gayle and Paul Stoffel, and Sharon and Michael Young.

For a more extensive history of the Nasher Sculpture Center and the lives of its founders, see the DallasSITES essay “Private Collection, Public Art: Raymond and Patsy Nasher.” 

Matthew Barney, The Cloud Club, 2002, Mason and Hamlin Symetrigrand piano with stainless steel, silver, white mother-of-pearl, gold lip mother-of-pearl, black lip mother-of-pearl, green abalone, quartersawn Honduras mahogany, lacewood, walnut, ash burl, redwood burl, madrone burl, and Chilean laurel marquetry; internally lubricated plastic; potatoes; concrete, and sterling silver, approximate dimensions: 57 x 108 x 84 in. (144.78 cm x 2 m 74.321 cm x 2 m 13.36 cm), Dallas Museum of Art, Contemporary Art Fund: Gift of Arlene and John Dayton, Mr. and Mrs. Vernon E. Faulconer, Mr. and Mrs. Bryant M. Hanley, Jr., Marguerite and Robert K. Hoffman, Cindy and Howard Rachofsky, Deedie and Rusty Rose, Gayle and Paul Stoffel, and three anonymous donors; DMA/amfAR Benefit Auction Fund; and Roberta Coke Camp Fund, object no.: 2003.24.1.A-D.

Bruce Nauman, Shadow Puppet Spinning Head, 1990, Betacam SP, running time: 1 hr. 2.75 min. (62 min. 45 sec.), The Rachofsky Collection and the Dallas Museum of Art through the DMA/amfAR Benefit Auction Fund and Contemporary Art Fund: Gift of Arlene and John Dayton, Mr. and Mrs. Vernon E. Faulconer, Mr. and Mrs. Bryant M. Hanley, Jr., Marguerite and Robert K. Hoffman, Cindy and Howard Rachofsky, Deedie and Rusty Rose, Gayle and Paul Stoffel, and two anonymous donors, object no.: 2004.5.A.

Fast Forward: Contemporary Collections for the Dallas Museum of Art, ed. MarÍa de Corral and John R. Lane (Dallas: Dallas Museum of Art, 2007).

Quoted in Shermakaye Bass, “Grants Give Artists a Chance to Grow,” Dallas Morning News, January 23, 1994, 2C.

Karel Funk, Untitled #21, 2006, acrylic on panel, overall: 31 x 27 in. (78.74 x 68.58 cm), The Rachofsky Collection and the Dallas Museum of Art through the DMA/amfAR Benefit Auction Fund, object no.: 2010.28.

Johannes Kahrs, Untitled (young man 1), 2010, oil on canvas, overall: 18 1/2 x 13 3/4 in. (46.99 x 34.93 cm), Gift of the Buddy Taub Foundation, Dennis A. Roach and Jill Roach, Directors, object no.: 2011.3.

Michelangelo Pistoletto, Infinity Cube (Metrocubo d'infinito) (A cubic meter of infinity), 1966, mirror and rope, overall: 47 1/4 x 41 1/4 x 47 1/4 in. (120.02 x 104.78 x 120.02 cm), The Rachofsky Collection and the Dallas Museum of Art through the DMA/amfAR Benefit Auction Fund, object no.: 2011.9.

Mallary Jean Tenore, “Art Dallas Art Fair—Founders: Be Open to Inspiration,” Dallas Morning News, October 17, 2008, 5E.

The Dallas Biennale was on view April 13–August 19, 2012 with work by Claude Leveque, Zoe Crosher, Clarissa Tossin, Hugues Reip, Michael Corris, Michael Smith, Kim Beom, Nick Barbee, Anthea Behm, Gabriel Martinez, Pierre Joseph, Mario Garcia Torres, Clarissa Tossin, Charlotte Moth, Nicole Miller, Delphine Reist, Louise Hervé, Chloé Maillet, Sylvie Fleury, Moreshin Allahyari, and the artist collective Okay Mountain. The curators were Dallas Contemporary director Peter Doroshenko and adjunct curator Florence Ostende. It was considered conceptual in that it was intended to be a one-time exhibition, unlike a traditional biennial exhibition. Peter Simek, “Why Dallas’ First Biennale Art Exhibition Will Also Be its Last,” D Magazine online edition, March 26, 2012 (viewed on June 13, 2013).

Dick Higgins is Michael Mazurek, Jesse Morgan Barnett, and CJ Davis, three artists who are active in the Dallas art scene. Mazurek and Barnett are currently adjunct professors at their alma mater, the University of Texas at Arlington, where the three artists met and were influenced by artist professor Stephen Lapthisophon.

Quoted in Peter Simek, “Another Dallas Biennial? The Spring Art Calendar Just Got More Confusing—and Interesting,” D Magazine online edition, April 3, 2012 (viewed on June 13, 2013).

Peter Simek, “Another Dallas Biennial? The Spring Art Calendar Just Got More Confusing—and Interesting,” D Magazine online edition, April 3, 2012 (viewed on June 13, 2013).

The exhibition included work by Kristen Cochran, Lanie Delay, Vince Jones, Kirsten Macy, Margaret Meehan, Ludwig Schwarz, Marjorie Schwarz, Edward Setina, and Lizzy Wetzel and open studios of Shamrock residents Lily Hanson, Peter Ligon, Marianne Newsom, Brian Ryden, Noah Simblist, Sunny Sliger, and Saul Waranch. Fallas Dart Air, press release, April 13, 2012 (viewed on June 10, 2013).

DB12 Volume 2 was an online exhibition curated by artist Stephen Lapthisophon. Works included were Martha Rosler’s Semiotics of the Kitchen and Sol LeWitt’s essays on wall drawings and Sentences on Conceptual Art, with additional works by Dallas-based artists Ludwig Schwarz, Darryl Lauster, Michelle Rawlings, and others.

Fallas Dart Air 2013: Low and Slow at Mama Faye’s BBQ was organized by Dallas-based artists Ludwig Schwarz and Peter Ligon with assistance from Michael Mazurek and featured 10 prominent local and regional galleries, publications, institutions, and collectives exhibiting in the manner of a traditional art fair. Exhibitors were CentralTrak: The UT Dallas Artists Residency, Dick Higgins Gallery, Fort Worth Drawing Center, Mai Koetjecacov Editions of Wichita Falls, Oliver Francis Gallery, The Public Trust, Secret Fun, Semigloss Magazine, Shamrock Hotel Studios, and Studio DTFU.