TRIBUTE TO RICK BRETTELL

Co-Founder and First Board President

of The Dallas Architecture Forum

by Nate Eudaly

Rick Brettell, PhD, a distinguished leader of the arts and humanities in North Texas, passed last Friday after a long battle with cancer. For The Dallas Architecture Forum, this loss is especially impactful as Rick was one of the visionary Dallas leaders who founded The Forum in 1997. Rick also served as the first President of the Board of Directors of The Forum and was a member of our Advisory Board at his passing.

Rick’s list of accomplishments is a long and amazing one. His creative and magnetic personality, combined with a keen intellect and encyclopedic knowledge on a wide range of subjects, created a force of nature that transformed the arts and culture in Dallas over many decades. As Director of the Dallas Museum of Art, Brettell was instrumental in raising the funds to construct the Hamon addition to the museum. He was also adamant that Edward Larrabee Barnes, who designed the first DMA building in the Arts District, be engaged to design the Hamon Building. An internationally recognized expert on Monet and Pissarro, Rick brought scholarly discipline to biographies, histories, monographs, lectures and a video series on these and other Impressionist artists.

Brettell was the Founding American Director of FRAME (the French Regional and American Museum Exchange), as well as the Founding Director of the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History at UT-Dallas, which has grown to include a research center at the DMA. He was responsible for securing the Barrett Collection of Swiss Art for UTD, and for bringing the Crow Museum of Asian Art under the auspices of the university. As a tribute to Brettell, the late Margaret McDermott and the McDermott Foundation established the Richard Brettell Award in the Arts. Brettell also served as the Art Critic for the Dallas Morning News for many years, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as one of the final honors of his illustrious career. A planned Athenaeum envisioned by Brettell at UTD to encompass the various art collections he secured for the university will house the Richard R. Brettell Reading Room, and his widow, Carol, has suggested that donations in Rick’s memory may be made towards this project.

Forum members will remember the lively, informative and entertaining talks Rick gave for The Forum. Whether evaluating the architectural design of new art museums across the United States, or discussing the cultural landscape of Dallas with Mark Lamster, Forum audiences were engaged and educated by Rick. He touched the lives of Forum thought leaders, including Corky Cunningham and Mark Gunderson. As Director of The Forum, I valued Rick’s guidance and support. Rick was a man who dared to dream and achieve big ideas, and whose legacy will continue to enrich us and the generations to come.