It's a first: A local developer dedicates four acres of prime real estate to a free sculpture garden devoted exclusively to Texas artists, spending several million dollars in the process.

Granted, Dallas developer Craig Hall owns the three dozen artworks that go on view to the public Monday. And the location is off the usual track. The Texas Sculpture Garden is part of the Hall Office Park complex in Frisco, 30 miles north of downtown Dallas, beyond the new Shops at Willow Bend shopping center.

Some of the state's top talents are represented: Harry Geffert of Crowley; Ken Little of San Antonio; Joseph Havel of Houston; Mac Whitney of Ovilla; James Surls, formerly of Splendora, now based in Colorado; Frances Bag-ley, Tom Orr, Sherry Owens, James Sullivan and Isaac Smith of Dallas.

Color is the first thing visitors notice driving in - a soaring red construction by Mr. Whitney, a bright blue kinetic piece by Art Shirer, an undulating abstraction of a reclining figure titled La Mujer Roja (The Red Woman) by Michelle O'Michael.

More than a dozen other sculptures dot newly landscaped gardens - a former meadow where cows grazed recently and sunflowers once reached waist-high, now a series of gently sloping hills and pathways punctuated by trees, plants and water.

Fanciful creatures await those who get out of their cars to walk the grounds. Bronze rabbits by David Iles romp through bushes. Metal ravens perch atop spindly steel branches in a Joe Barrington piece. A charioteer with part of a tractor as its head leads an animal of indeterminate origin in T. Paul Hernandez's whimsical Reincarnation of Farmer Bradley. An abstract dolphin by John Brough Miller leaps into the air.

"We want people to enjoy this,'' says Patricia Meadows, the Hall Financial Group senior vice president who oversaw the project. "Craig has a great sense of whimsy and humor, and it shows. But he's been collecting for 30 years, so my job was to bring him a panorama of Texas art and let him choose."

Mr. Hall and his wife, Kathryn, U.S. ambassador to Austria in the Clinton administration, have several other collections, including one of contemporary heavyweights like Frank Stella, Agnes Martin and Robert Mangold and another of Central European artists active during the communist period.

They left a sculpture by New York's Joel Shapiro in front of the embassy in Vienna as a gift and plan to divide other works among a Dallas high-rise they are remodeling, a house under construction in Napa, Calif., and an apartment they keep in Paris.

Other sculptures, by Australian Andrew Rogers and a group of stone-carvers from Zimbabwe, are located elsewhere in the 162-acre office park. But Mr. Hall is particularly excited about the garden, which he describes as "one of the most fun things I've ever done."

"Too often local artists aren't given proper respect,'' he says. "I wanted to showcase some of the better Texas sculptors, but the more I looked the more I realized that there are a lot of interesting up-and-coming artists as well.''

His goals are clear.

"I hope that putting sculpture in a very public place and making it accessible to a wide variety of people will encourage them to further their education about art,'' he says. "Second, I hope the exposure artists get here will help them sell and improve their careers.''

Ms. Meadows, former founder-director of the Dallas Visual Art Center, cast a wide net across the state, from large cities to rural areas. A broad age span is represented as well. David Graeve, a Houston artist who works in glass and aluminum, is in his early 30s. Mr. Geffert, Mr. Miller and Richard Neidhardt are over 65.

The Sculpture Garden collection extends into the lobby of Hall company headquarters, where an interactive directory gives the location and title of every work. Additional information will be available on a Web site.

The project is still a work in progress.

"We will commit to only one sculpture per artist, but we have room for maybe another 10 pieces,'' Mr. Hall says. "The collection is growing, but it's not infinite.''

The Texas Sculpture Garden at Hall Office Park, 6801 Gaylord Parkway in Frisco, opens to the public Monday. The garden is open from dawn to dusk daily and the lobby from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. Take the Dallas North Tollway past Legacy; follow the access road to Gaylord and turn left. Call 972-377-1100; www.hallofficepark.com.