Texas Sculpture Garden home to vast collection of contemporary Texas sculptures

The collection contains 40 pieces of art by 41 different artists.

Photo by Kaitlin Pennell

The sculptures find their home at Hall Office Park in Frisco.

When most people think of art, the first works that typically come to mind are famous paintings, such as Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" or Edvard Munch's "The Scream." A local Frisco location pays homage to a lesser-acknowledged form of art, however: sculptures.

The Texas Sculpture Garden is located on four acres at Hall Office Park, which was founded and is operated by Hall Financial Group. The company also has an international collection of sculptures throughout the rest of the complex.

"We have always had a lot of interest in art and had done sculptures in all of our real estate projects," said Craig Hall, founder of Hall Financial and the Texas Sculpture Garden. "What caused us to think about the Texas Sculpture Garden is that we wanted to do something that really celebrated the contemporary art talent from our state."

Hall's daughter, Kristina Hahsler, said sculptures are actually a long-time family interest.

"My grandmother was an artist and an art teacher -- sculpture was one of her favorite mediums," said Hahsler, who works as a collection manager at Hall Financial. "Growing up, she instilled a love of art in my father. He has always collected art, and building an office park in Frisco gave him an opportunity to share his passion with others."

The Texas Sculpture Garden, founded in 1999, is the largest private collection of contemporary Texas sculpture made available to the public. Hahsler's sister, Brijetta Hall Waller, made a documentary over the founding of the garden called Dances of the Prairie, which follows some of the artists and their sculptures leading up to the opening day of the collection.

The collection contains 40 pieces of art by 41 different artists -- one piece of art, the "Bird Window," was a collaboration between Betsy Bass and Tim Nentrup. Originally, the sculpture garden consisted of only living Texas artists, although three artists with works featured in the collection have since died.

Hahsler said being immersed in such unique art inspires creativity and communication.

"I always tell visitors I am not offended if they don't like something," she said. "I think we often learn more from art we don't like than art we do. It makes us work a little harder to figure out why we don't like something -- it inspires discussion."

The Texas Sculpture Garden is located at 6801 Gaylord Pkwy. Entry to the location is free. The indoor sculpture gallery is open Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon.

"It gives us great pleasure to see families exploring the park with their children as well as students on field trips viewing the collection," Hahsler said. "Frisco is really a great family community, and while Hall Financial had investments in a lot of places, it has really been attracted to the Frisco lifestyle and the people here."