On the morning of Nov. 22, 1963, President John F.
Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy realized that their Fort Worth hotel
suite featured an extraordinary array of artwork, including a painting by
Vincent van Gogh and a bronze by Pablo Picasso.
A group of prominent Fort Worth citizens had scrambled
to put together the collection in the days leading up to the president's
fateful Texas visit, transforming an otherwise plain suite into something
special.
Next year, almost all of those works the couple admired
in their last private moments before President Kennedy was assassinated will be
on display at the Dallas Museum of Art in commemoration of the 50th anniversary
of his death.
"It's not a story about death. It's not a story
about hate. It's a story about art and love, which I think is a very good
tribute to the Kennedys. It's all about their love of art," said Olivier
Meslay, associate director of curatorial affairs at the museum and the
exhibition's curator.