DURHAM -- A bronze sculpture by Henry Moore that once greeted visitors to the Dallas home of the late Raymond D. Nasher is at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, along with six other sculptures on loan from the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas.
The loan includes works by European modernists Moore, Gaston Lachaise, Marino Marini and Mimmo Paladino, which are on view in the museum's Mary D.B.T. Semans Great Hall.
Gaston Lachaise's "Elevation," also called "Standing Woman," is the artist's first life-size figure and best-known sculptural achievement. Italian artist Marino Marini's "Miracle" depicts a rearing horse and rider as a metaphor for a lack of control in the world. Henry Moore's "Reclining Figure: Angles," a 1979 large-scale bronze, was inspired by an ancient Aztec Chacmool figure. Mimmo Paladino's "The Bread of History (Il Pane della Storia)," takes the form of a wheeled cart bearing expressionistically sculpted bronze heads. These sculptures are on view through June 2010.
Two sculptures by Pablo Picasso are part of the museum's ongoing exhibition, "Picasso and the Allure of Language."
Since the Nasher Museum opened in 2005, the Nasher Sculpture Center, founded in 2003 by the late Raymond D. Nasher and his family, has loaned more than 100 works to the museum.
"My father and I believed it was important to establish an ongoing relationship between the two institutions to share significant works from the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection with students, faculty and employees of Duke, as well as residents and visitors to Durham, the Triangle community and North Carolina," said Nancy Nasher, a 1979 graduate of Duke Law School and a member of Duke's Board of Trustees.
"Over the last four years, monumental sculptures have rotated throughout the Nasher Museum, exposing our visitors to works not only by much-loved artists, but also emerging artists," said Kimerly Rorschach, Mary D.B.T. and James H. Semans Director of the Nasher Museum.
The two loaned works by Pablo Picasso are "Head of a Woman (Tête de femme)" (1931) and "Head of a Woman (Tête de femme)" or "Head of Jacqueline" (1957). They are on view through Jan. 3.
The seven recent loans join the large-scale works from the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection already on view outside the building: Mark di Suvero's "In the Bushes" and Anthony Caro's "Sculpture Three."
