STEVEN NASH LEAVES NASHER FOR PALM SPRINGS ART MUSEUM

Steven Nash, who coordinated the organization and opening of Dallas’s Nasher Sculpture Center and served as director for its first three years, will leave the post in early March, reports Scott Cantrell in the Dallas Morning News_ (via ArtsJournal). He’ll be the new executive director of the Palm Springs Art Museum in California. “Having taken it from before infancy through construction and its birthing pains,” Nash said of the Nasher, “it’s up and running and a mature institution. I was ready for a new challenge, and that’s what occurred when the people from Palm Springs called.” Nash’s Dallas farewell will be “Matisse: Painter as Sculptor,” which is divided between the Nasher and the Dallas Museum of Art and opens January 21. Nash was named director of the Nasher Sculpture Center in January 2001, when construction began on the museum’s Renzo Piano building. The museum, with outdoor garden designed by landscape architect Peter Walker, opened in October 2003.