By Bob Ray Sanders
bobray@star-telegram.com
After returning to his Fort Worth hotel room the morning of Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy made several calls.
As he dialed a number to Uvalde to wish former Vice President John Nance Garner a happy 95th birthday, Jackie Kennedy began to look around the three-room Suite 850 in the then-Hotel Texas and noticed some amazing artwork.
In his book
The Death of a President, William Manchester described the scene and the mood:
"In the fatigue of last night and the haste of this morning neither Kennedy had noticed that they were surrounded by a priceless art exhibition. On the walls and tables were a Monet, a Picasso, a van Gogh, a Prendergast, and twelve other celebrated oil paintings, water colors and bronzes."
As the president hung up the phone the first lady said, "Isn't this sweet, Jack? They've just stripped their whole museum of all their treasures to brighten this dingy hotel suite."
Perusing a catalog that accompanied the exhibit, the Kennedys noticed a list of Fort Worth residents who had put it together and the first name they saw was Mrs. J. Lee Johnson III (now Ruth Carter Stevenson). Kennedy suggested they give her a call, looking up her number in the phone book.
"Thus Ruth Carter Johnson, the wife of a Fort Worth newspaper executive, became the surprised recipient of John Kennedy's last telephone call," Manchester wrote. "She was home nursing a sick daughter. She had watched the ballroom breakfast on WBAP-TV, and when she heard the president's voice she was speechless."
Johnson, of course, did speak with the president and Jackie Kennedy just before they left for Dallas.
What that group of Fort Worth people did in quickly organizing (from private and public collections) an art exhibit for the president was an amazing gesture that greatly added to the heartwarming feeling the Kennedys had gotten from many people of Cowtown during their overnight stay.
More than 10,000 people had lined the route from what was then Carswell Air Force Base to the Hotel Texas, now the Hilton Fort Worth, late that Thursday night.
Friday morning, thousands stood in the rain outside the hotel to hear the president speak.
A sold-out breakfast crowd inside had given the president, and especially Jackie Kennedy, a rousing Fort Worth welcome.
As we approach the 50th anniversary of the assassination, the people of Dallas and Fort Worth have been trying to figure out how to commemorate that event in the most tasteful ways possible, dwelling on Kennedy's life and legacy more than his death.
The Dallas Museum of Art and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art have come up with an extraordinary plan that fits the bill.
They will recreate the last art exhibit that the president saw. It just may be the most innovative commemoration to occur next year.
Hotel Texas: An Art Exhibition for the President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy will open at the DMA May 26 and run through Sept. 15. It then will move to the Carter from Oct. 12 through January 12, 2014.
Olivier Meslay, the DMA's associate director of curatorial affairs and curator for the exhibit, said in announcing the exhibition, "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."
Andrew Walker, the Carter's director, said that Meslay approached him with the idea last summer.
It took off as the two museums began to chart where the 16 works of art were and talk about where the exhibit should be shown.
Because it was the DMA's initiative and Dallas was the site of the assassination, it made sense to open the show there, Walker said, noting that it will be in Fort Worth on the anniversary date.
It is most appropriate that this exhibition opens in Dallas and tells a story most people don't know.
As for Fort Worth, it will be in keeping with the city's emphasis on John Kennedy's life, the good time he had before the fateful trip to Dallas.
A new JFK tribute, on the site where Kennedy spoke outside the Hotel Texas that Friday morning, is scheduled to be dedicated next year before the president's birthday in May.
Although not planned for this reason, the exhibit naturally honors Ruth Carter Stevenson and those other visionary art lovers who put the original hotel show together.
Stevenson just two years earlier had successfully fulfilled a dream of her late father, Amon Carter, by overseeing the completion and opening of a new museum named for him.
Bob Ray Sanders' column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. 817-390-7775Twitter: @BobRaySanders
Looking for comments?
