Trammell and Margaret Crow spent decades collecting Asian art. In 1998, they opened a museum in the Dallas Arts District so others could experience it. Nearly three decades later, that original act of access still shapes the Crow Museum of Asian Art, now operating two free locations across North Texas.
The Crow’s history has continued to expand from that original gift to the city. In 2019, the Crow family transferred the collection to The University of Texas at Dallas to support its long-term preservation and care. Five years later, a second Crow location opened at the Edith and Peter O’Donnell Jr. Athenaeum on the UT Dallas campus in Richardson. Designed by Morphosis, the building added a new setting for exhibitions, education and public programs while the Dallas Arts District museum continued its own calendar. Admission at both locations is free.
This November, the downtown museum will open its first collaboration with the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation. Twisted, Plaited, Sculpted brings 22 works by 17 artists from the Foundation’s Japanese bamboo holdings to the Crow, placing a collection built in private hands before a broad public audience.
The collectors behind the exhibition, Preston Hollow residents Carl and Marilynn Thoma, began collecting in 1975. Their collection now includes more than 1,900 works across Art of the Spanish Americas, Digital and Media Art, Post-war Painting and Sculpture, and Japanese Bamboo. In 2014, they established the Foundation to formalize a belief that has guided their collecting for years: art should be shared as a public resource.
That belief shapes the Foundation’s museum loans, exhibitions, grants and public spaces in Dallas and Santa Fe.
“We believe that collectors are only temporary caretakers of art,” Carl and Marilynn say. Stewardship, to them, means preserving works, continuing to learn from them and making them accessible through exhibitions, loans, educational programs and publication. “A collection should not exist only for the enjoyment of its owners.”
For Carl and Marilynn, access is part of the responsibility that collecting creates.
Their approach gives the upcoming Crow exhibition context. These objects belong to a living collecting practice shaped by curiosity, research, preservation and thoughtful decisions to place art in public settings.
Carl and Marilynn began collecting Japanese bamboo in 2011, focusing initially on contemporary, nonfunctional basketry. They were drawn to the extraordinary technical skill required to work with bamboo and to the individuality artists achieve within a tradition extending back centuries.
“The more we learned, the more we appreciated the field’s range,” they say. The combination of “tradition, discipline, and experimentation” has held their interest.
That remarkable range comes into view in Twisted, Plaited, Sculpted. Opening November 7 at the Crow’s Dallas Arts District location, the exhibition features 22 works by 17 artists, including Living National Treasures Fujinuma Noboru and Fujitsuka Shosei. Bamboo is split, woven and shaped into forms that can appear architectural, delicate, energetic or nearly impossible.
For Carl and Marilynn, the Crow felt like a natural partner because of its knowledge of Asian art, commitment to education and ability to connect historical traditions with contemporary practice. They welcomed the museum’s interpretation of the collection for a wider audience.
They hope first-time visitors are struck by the beauty of the works and become curious about how they were made. Familiar bamboo takes on surprising forms in the hands of artists who have spent years mastering the material.
Dallas has become central to the Foundation’s work, and Carl and Marilynn describe sharing the collection here as especially meaningful. They want the Foundation to contribute actively to the city’s cultural life through exhibitions at its Dallas headquarters and collaborations throughout the region.
That sense of appreciation makes the exhibition a natural fit for November. It offers Dallas audiences the chance to experience work collected, studied and preserved over decades, and to carry that appreciation forward.
Twisted, Plaited, Sculpted opens November 7 at the Crow Museum of Asian Art in the Dallas Arts District. Admission is free. Learn more at crowmuseum.org and explore the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation at thomafoundation.org.