With his wife Marlene, Nashville entrepreneur and philanthropist Spencer Hays began collecting art in the 1970s. The couple soon developed a passion for French art of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and for more than 40 years, they built a collection that is today renowned for its extraordinary depth, beauty, and emotional resonance. Their greatest interest became the Nabis, a group of symbolist painters active from the 1890s into the early years of the 20th century that included Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, and Édouard Vuillard. Along with the Nabis, the Hays’s acquired psychologically expressive figure paintings by impressionists Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, realists Henri Fantin-Latour and Eva Gonzalès, and modernists Henri Matisse, Paul Elie Ranson, and Odilon Redon.
Although the Hays collection has earned legendary status in Nashville, it has not been seen publicly anywhere in the United States. This exhibition features a selection of 30 works, representing a cross section of the larger collection, focusing on depictions of private encounters, portrayals of women, and paintings capturing the spirituality of nature.
This exhibition is made possible through the generosity of the Marlene and Spencer Hays Foundation and The Fine Art Group, New York.
Top imagae: Henri Matisse. La blouse blanche brodée, 1936. Oil and pencil on panel; 6 1/4 × 8 3/4 in. The Marlene and Spencer Hays Collection. © 2026 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: John Schweikert
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