Hotel Texas

If you've hung out with my family through our blog then you know we love the Dallas Museum of Art.  It is amazing to step out of our otherwise incredibly fast paced lives and simply enjoy the beauty of art.  Each one of the children enjoy the event for different reasons.  Abigail is my artist and she loves seeing new styles and forms.  Caleb is my historian and he loves the time periods and political backgrounds of each piece.  Frankie and I, well we like to go because the art is pretty!  As for Jon, well, he likes to hang out with the rest of us!

 

This summer the DMA has showcased the Hotel Texas Exhibit.  It is a collection of maybe fifteen pieces that were on exhibit when President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy visited Fort Worth.  Before coming to Dallas that fateful day the President and first lady visited Fort Worth.  This fabulous collection of  paintings by Vincent van Gogh, Thomas Eakins, Lyonel Feininger, Franz Kline, and Marsden Hartley, and sculptures by Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore, among others was installed in the hotel room the Kennedy's would stay.  An exhibit guide was made detail the history behind each piece of art.

 

The following morning before leaving the Fort Worth hotel the President telephoned the art organizer to thank her for putting such an impressive collection together just for their overnight stay.  This is thought to be the last phone call by the President.  The Kennedy's would go on that morning to host a fund raising breakfast in Fort Worth and then head to Dallas.  Because of the assassination in Dallas that day, this artwork was quickly returned to the private collectors and never displayed again.  All but two of the original pieces have been reunited at the DMA along with photos of the hotel room installation, newspaper articles, and other memorabilia from the two days in Fort Worth. 

 

In September this installation will be moved to Fort Worth where it will be on display commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. 

 

This was especially a moving exhibit for Caleb because of all of his worth with the Sixth Floor Museum.  There were several acknowledgement to the Sixth Floor Museum for items included in this exhibit.  The Sixth Floor also prepared the fifteen minute documentary showing the excited of the President's arrival in Texas. 

 

These days should be remembered

and observed in every generation by

 every family, and in every province

and in every city. . . .nor should the

memory of these days die out among their descendants.

Esther 9:28