Artists, business leaders and city council members turned out to dedicate the new Crow Collection of Asian Art Sculpture Garden in the Dallas Arts District today. Capping six years of planning and development, the $3 million-plus attraction surrounding the Trammell Crow Center features 15 historical and contemporary Asian sculptures as well as vegetation, manicured trees, natural-limestone rock work and a dry landscape garden. One of the sculptures (shown here) is called Buddha, by Chinese artist Liu Yonggang, who attended today’s brief program in the Crow Collection’s Grand Gallery.
There, City Council member Philip Kingston of District 14, which includes the Arts District, welcomed a crowd that included Robert Hsueh, chairman of the DFW International Airport board; Catherine Cuellar, executive director of the Dallas Arts District; and Jeremy Strick, director of the neighboring Nasher Sculpture Center. “You’re sitting in District 14,” Kingston told them wryly, “which is why you feel both serene and energized at the same time.” Amy Hofland, executive director of the Crow Collection, called the new sculpture garden “your quiet retreat,” and a 24/7 “antidote to stress.” Added Trammell S. Crow, chairman of the Crow Collection of Asian Art board and son of the late developer Fred Trammell Crow: “I can just picture my old man and [civic leader] John Stemmons looking down on us, and Mr. Stemmons saying, ‘Atta boy, cuz!’ And my dad would say, ‘The sooner the quicker!’ ” Stemmons called everybody “cuz,” Crow explained later, while the latter expression was one of his dad’s favorites, used to encourage a sense of urgency.
