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President John F. Kennedy’s Last Exhibit

By Sean Cole

Published August 16, 2013 at 5:12 PM EDT

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Dallas Museum of Art

http://www.thestory.org/sites/default/files/public/audio/story/2013_08_16_president_kenndys_last_exhibit.mp3

When managers of the Hotel Texas learned President Kennedy would be staying with them in November of 1963, they wanted to make it a memorable experience. In the five days leading up to his visit, the hotel, working with art curators, gathered a collection of masterpiece artworks to fill the rooms for the president and Jacqueline Kennedy. They had no way of knowing it would be the last art Kennedy would ever see. Fifty years later, curator Olivier Meslay has recreated that art collection for the Dallas Museum of Art.

Also in this show: Gore Vidal, the late novelist, speaks with interviewer Studs Terkel in 1961 about John F. Kennedy and the great intellectuals of American history; when a would-be thief tried to get away with Voodoo Donut Kitchen’s prized Holy Donut, clerk Jay Boss Rubin sprung into action. What he didn’t know was the pursuit would take on a life of its own.