This blog post was updated on October 16, 2018.
Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Dallas Museum of Art brings together the works of art installed in the president’s suite at the Hotel Texas during his fateful trip in 1963. The original installation, orchestrated by a small group of Fort Worth art collectors, was created especially for the president and first lady to celebrate their overnight visit to the city and included paintings by Vincent van Gogh, Thomas Eakins, Lyonel Feininger, Franz Kline, and Marsden Hartley as well as sculptures by Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore and more.
These same works are now on view at the DMA in an exhibition titled Hotel Texas: An Art Exhibition for the President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy and are brought back together for the first time since the President’s assassination. The show opened May 26th and will run until the 15th of September 2013. Presented in association with Fort Worth’s Amon Carter Museum of American Art, the exhibition will go on view there from October 12th until January 12, 2014.
Says Maxwell L. Anderson, the Eugene McDermott Director of the Dallas Museum of Art, about Hotel Texas:
This exhibition provides an unprecedented opportunity to rediscover the Kennedys’ time in Texas, prior to the untimely death of the president, and to enhance our understanding of how the president and first lady were perceived at that point in history … The organization of an art exhibition for the couple was a testament to their appreciation for the arts. It also underscored the cultural advocacy of the leaders of Fort Worth and Dallas.
According to Olivier Meslay, Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Dallas Museum of Art and curator of the exhibition, a goal of the exhibition is to “inspire some historical reflection about the Kennedys’ impact on the arts and the significance of providing them a space complete with such a wide-ranging group of masterworks.” Alongside the artworks displayed, Hotel Texas presents new scholarship surrounding the original installation as a means to “further celebrate the Kennedys’ impact on American culture.”
The Dallas Museum of Art is located at 1717 North Harwood and is but one part of the Dallas Arts District, the largest urban arts district in the United States and home to the Nasher Sculpture Center, the Crow Collection of Asian Art, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, AT&T Performing Arts Center, the Dallas Black Dance Theatre, the Dallas Theater Center, Dallas Opera and plenty of other arts-related attractions, shops and a variety of places to eat and drink. When planning your visit to the DMA keep in mind all the opportunities to make the artful most of your time in Dallas.
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