The Nasher Museum of Art is located at Duke University, in North Carolina. It is actually part of the university’s art museum and hence the reason for its location on the Duke campus.
Opened in 2005, the museum was designed by Rafael Viñoly and came to a cost of US$ 24 million. Within its first year the museum attracted over a 100,000 visitors.
The museum, named after Raymond Nasher, consists of over 10,000 pieces of art on its displays, including those by artistes such as Christian Boltanski, Sam Durant, Olafur Eliasson, Darío Escobar, David Hammons, Hong Lei, Lorna Simpson, Eve Sussman, Bob Thompson, Kara Walker and many more.
The aim of the museum is to support contemporary art and lesser known artistes from around the world as well as locals.
A popular exhibition held at the Nasher Museum was the one organized together with the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Here the exhibition showcased Spanish art during the period of 1598 and 1621. This exhibition placed the spotlight on two popular artistic giants at that time in the world of Spanish art. Those included the work of El Greco and the paintings of Velázquez.
This exhibition included over 120 paintings, and various other art pieces which represented over 20 artistes. What was unique about the exhibition was that it brought together works of art from around the world; some of the pieces, the museum claimed rarely saw the outside of their native countries.
After wandering around at the Nasher Museum a stay at a near by Durham hotel would be ideal. The Millennium Hotel Durham is just minutes away from the museum and is surrounded by several other venues of interest such as Research Triangle Park. In addition, the hotel’s central location allows guests easy access to business centers and fairs.