One of the most impressive views of the Fort Worth skyline is looking east from the portico or the second floor windows of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art.
It is a magnificent sight at any time of the day or night.It is a view that Ruth Carter Stevenson saw almost daily for more than 50 years, and that scene -- with the Henry Moore "Upright Motive" sculptures and a mesquite tree in the foreground and a growing central city in the distance -- might easily symbolize three of her greatest loves: art, nature and a hometown she saw evolve along with the cherished museum bequeathed to the city by her father.The museum bears her father's name, but it distinctly bears her stamp. While her older brother ran this newspaper, she accepted the task of seeing the museum designed and constructed, expand more than once and acquire a collection of some of the most important paintings, sculptures and photographs in the country.But Stevenson, who died Sunday night at 89, leaves her mark across the Fort Worth landscape and on many of its institutions.After the great flood of 1949, she was among the first to lobby for beautification and reforestation of the Trinity River, later becoming a leader of the Streams and Valleys Committee, which spearheaded some of the most significant improvements of a once-rejected and abused river.It was her vision to replace a blighted area of downtown by constructing an impressive, and now acclaimed, public space, the Fort Worth Water Gardens. She called once again on one of her favorite architects, Philip Johnson, to design it.Even before the museum was built, Stevenson was active in a Junior League program to provide art education for young people. Some of her favorite moments in the museum galleries were watching hundreds of eager elementary students experience for the first time the treasures housed there.An active, hard-working and caring woman, Ruth Carter Stevenson more than built on her famous father's legacy. She built an incredible one of her own.Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
