Richard & Nona Barrett's House

Richard & Nona Barrett are art collectors. They concentrated first on contemporaries in the Dallas area, gradually expanding their interest across the state and back to an older generation, the regionalist artisans known as the "Dallas Nine." By 1999 the collection was so large and so much of it was in storage that they decided to start making gifts. Nearly 250 paintings and sculptures went to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, which, with the Barretts' blessing, dispersed more than half of the gift to a dozen museums across the state, from Abilene to El Paso to Beaumont.