1967–1981: Meadows Museum while still a graduate student in 1966. |upright 1.05 |left When Jordan was offered the post of the director of the recently opened
Meadows Museum at
Southern Methodist University in
Dallas, Texas, the museum was struggling with an art scandal that had damaged its reputation; 44 paintings in their collection had turned out to have been
forgeries, including counterfeits by
Elmyr de Hory. Jordan visited the museum with López-Rey, and concluded that he would have to "essentially build [the collection] from scratch".
Algur H. Meadows, the museum's founder and benefactor, pledged over US$1 million (equivalent to US$ million in ) to rebuild their Spanish art collection, and Jordan accepted the position. Jordan became the founding director of the Meadows Museum and chair of fine arts at the
Meadows School of the Arts in 1967. The museum closed for a few months, and Jordan began evaluating its collection with help from López-Rey and
Diego Angulo Íñiguez. Jordan revamped the collection by auctioning off paintings he deemed insignificant for a museum collection and acquiring new works before the museum reopened; the collection included
Yard with Lunatics (1794) by
Francisco Goya, and works of
Francisco de Zurbarán and
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. In a 1968
Art Journal article, Jordan discussed their recent additions and wrote that the museum had begun an acquisitions program to further expand their collection; he followed up with the 1974
collection catalog, ''The Meadows Museum: A Visitor's Guide to the Collection''. In 1971–72, Jordan organized an exhibition on a collection of works related to
Dennis Hopper, and a postwar art exhibition of works by
Andy Warhol,
Robert Rauschenberg and
Wallace Burnett at the University Gallery of Southern Methodist University. He oversaw
Poets of the Cities: New York and San Francisco 1950–65 (1974), an exhibition on international contemporary arts, at the University Gallery and
Dallas Museum of Arts. In 1975, Jordan was appointed a full professor at the Meadows School of the Arts, where he taught courses on Spanish art history and
connoisseurship. Jordan was a founding member and general secretary from 1976 to 1978 of the American Society for Hispanic Art Historical Studies. He joined the Dallas Museum of Art as the adjunct curator of European art in 1977, a post he held until 1982. He curated
Dallas Collects: Impressionist and Early Modern Masters (1978) for the 75th anniversary of the museum, assembling 115 works from local private collections, and authored its
exhibition catalog. In subsequent years, Jordan became a member of the Board of Trustees, and member and chairman of the Committee on Collections of the Dallas Museum of Art. ' final collaboration was the acquisition of
Portrait of Queen Mariana (1656) by
Diego Velázquez in 1978. |upright 0.75 With Meadows' financial support, Jordan acquired several prominent works at auctions and from art dealers, and significantly expanded the Meadows Museum's collection. The collaboration continued until Meadows' death in a car accident in 1978. Jordan organized
20th Century Sculpture: Mr. and Mrs. Raymond D. Nasher Collection, the first exhibition of Patsy and
Raymond Nasher's sculpture collection, at the University Gallery in 1978. He oversaw contemporary art exhibitions
Paintings and Drawings by Cy Twombly and ''Livres d'Artiste by Braque, Matisse, and Picasso from the Collection of the Bridwell Library'' at the same venue in 1980. During his tenure, Jordan acquired around 75 artworks, and helped develop the museum's sculpture collection at the "Elizabeth Meadows Sculpture Garden". His acquisitions included works by
Diego Velázquez, Francisco de Zurbarán,
Jusepe de Ribera and Murillo, six paintings by Goya from the 18th and 19th centuries, and 20th-century works of
Pablo Picasso,
Joan Miró and
Juan Gris. Jordan is widely credited for turning the Meadows Museum's collection into one of the most prominent collections of Spanish art outside Spain. He left the museum in 1981, but remained involved in their activities; he donated most of the Spanish paintings in his private collection to the museum by 2016, and was a member of the executive board of the Meadows School of the Arts until 2018.
1981–1990: Kimbell Art Museum provided Jordan a bigger budget to organize exhibitions and acquire paintings.|upright 1.05 |left In 1981, Jordan became the deputy director and chief curator of the
Kimbell Art Museum in
Fort Worth, Texas. According to Jordan, the museum had not hosted exhibitions of its own artworks before he joined, and they "began an aggressive exhibitions campaign to rebuild and expand the collection." Jordan curated his first major exhibition at the museum with
Craig Felton, professor of art at
Smith College,
Jusepe de Ribera, lo Spagnoletto, 1591–1652 in 1982. Jordan chaired the scholars' committee that planned and selected works for
El Greco of Toledo (1982–83); with 66 paintings gathered from several countries, it contained the most extensive collection of paintings by
El Greco. The exhibition was displayed at the
Prado Museum,
National Gallery of Art,
Toledo Museum of Art and Dallas Museum of Art, and curated by
Jonathan Brown, Jordan,
Richard L. Kagan and . Jordan also authored descriptive texts for the works in the accompanying catalog. the most quantitatively to reflect his prolificacy in the exhibition.|upright 1.05 In 1985, Jordan curated
Spanish Still Life in the Golden Age, 1600–1650 at the Kimbell Art Museum and Toledo Museum of Art, the first exhibition in the United States to focus on
still life paintings. The exhibition and its catalog, which analyzed the early history of still life paintings and artists of the
Spanish Golden Age, were noted by Jordan's contemporaries for being one of the earlier scholarly works in the study of the genre. Jordan was on the Art Committee of the
Hispanic Society of America in 1986, and was knighted in the
Order of Isabella the Catholic by the Spanish government at the
Embassy of Spain, Washington, D.C. for his contributions to Spanish art history on February 18, 1986. In collaboration with director
Edmund Pillsbury, Jordan had helped the museum acquire over 40 paintings of European origin by 1987. He wrote an introductory essay on the museum's collection the same year, published as a part of
In Pursuit of Quality: The Kimbell Art Museum: an Illustrated History of the Art and Architecture. Jordan served as an editor of
A Prosperous Past: The Sumptuous Still Life in the Netherlands, 1600–1700, authored by Dutch biologist and art historian . The book focused on
Dutch still life paintings, and accompanied an eponymous exhibition at the
Museum Het Prinsenhof,
Fogg Art Museum and Kimbell Art Museum in 1989. During his term, Jordan acquired notable Spanish paintings
Portrait of Don Pedro de Barberana y Aparregui (1631–33) by Velázquez,
Four Figures on a Step (1655–60) by Murillo,
Still Life with Oranges, Jars, and Boxes of Sweets (1760) by
Luis Egidio Meléndez, and
Portrait of Heriberto Casany (1918) by Miró, and wrote descriptive labels for all European works in the museum. Jordan retired in 1990 at age 50, following in his father's footsteps who had retired at 49.
1990–2018: Independent work Jordan worked as a private art dealer to fund himself in retirement, and focused on independent publications and exhibitions. He curated
La imitación de la naturaleza: los bodegones de Sánchez Cotán (The Imitation of Nature: The Still Life of Sánchez Cotán) at the Prado Museum in 1992, which included all six then-known
bodegónes (still life paintings depicting pantry items) by
Juan Sánchez Cotán, and one by
Felipe Ramírez. He authored its exhibition catalog discussing life, influence and
bodegónes of Cotán, and how Ramírez possibly imitated his work. Jordan and
Peter Cherry, lecturer at
Trinity College Dublin, curated
Spanish Still Life from Velázquez to Goya (1995) at the
National Gallery in
London, which became the museum's most attended exhibition of the time. Praised for its comprehensiveness, the catalog described the development of still life genre, paintings and artists during the Spanish Golden Age, its decline, and how works of Meléndez, Goya and the
Royal Academy revived interest in the subject. Southern Methodist University awarded Jordan with a
Doctor of Humane Letters,
honoris causa on May 20, 1995, "for his contributions to the world of arts and for the enrichment he has brought to the campus and the city of Dallas." In 1997, Jordan authored the catalog of
An Eye on Nature: Spanish Still-Life Paintings from Sánchez Cotán to Goya, a
Stair Sainty Matthiesen Gallery exhibition in
New York City. He evaluated details of the paintings and biographies of the artists featured in the exhibition, and expanded upon his ideas and analysis from
Spanish Still Life from Velázquez to Goya. When Raymond Nasher was planning to expand their collection into the
Nasher Sculpture Center following Patsy Nasher's death, Jordan became a member of the center's board and founding director of the
Nasher Foundation in 2001. Jordan's
Juan van der Hamen y León & the Court of Madrid was published in 2005, summarizing results of his work of over 40 years on van der Hamen. Jordan focused on van der Hamen's role in the court of
Philip IV during the 1620s, discussed his place among significant
Spanish Baroque painters, and emphasized on his versatility by assessing his
portraits and
history paintings alongside his acclaimed still life work. He curated an eponymous exhibition — the first monographic exhibition on van der Hamen — at the
Patrimonio Nacional in
Madrid and Meadows Museum in 2005–06. The work was well received by art historians, with praise for Jordan's depiction of van der Hamen's
complete artistic output and impact on the Spanish Golden Age. However, there were reservations about the extent of
artistic merit Jordan assigned to van der Hamen's portraits and history paintings. In 2010, Jordan headed the search committee of the
Chinati Foundation — where he had been a past president — to find a new director, leading to the appointment of
Thomas Kellein. To promote local collecting, he worked with
Olivier Meslay at the Dallas Museum of Art to create an exhibition of modern European paintings in private collections of Dallas. They curated ''Mind's Eye: Masterworks on Paper from David to Cézanne'' in 2014 with over 120 works on paper of 70 artists from the 18th to 20th-century. The Prado Museum appointed Jordan as an honorary trustee in 2017. Jordan died on January 22, 2018, at
William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital from complications of
idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. He was buried at the Hillcrest Mausoleum and Memorial Park in Dallas. Jordan was compiling a
catalogue raisonné of van der Hamen when he died. ==Connoisseurship==