Prayer card for President John F. Kennedy

Included in the Museum's temporary exhibit, "Mourning a President," about the funeral and mourning rites for President John F. Kennedy, this item will be on display on the Museum's seventh floor from November 17, 2017 to February 19, 2018. -- Lindsey Richardson, Curator of Collections

Fabian Bachrach (1917-2010) was a fourth generation photographer whose family commercial portrait studio had photographed nearly every U.S. president since Abraham Lincoln. Sen. John F. Kennedy did a portrait sitting with Bachrach in 1959, though none of the photographs proved usable because they were out of focus or Kennedy appeared "awkward." After multiple attempts scheduling a reshoot, Fabian Bachrach got his chance in the middle of the 1960 presidential campaign when Kennedy was in his U.S. Senate office. The reshoot lasted approximately ten minutes, and Bachrach had time for only six photographs. A black and white image showing Kennedy looking directly into the camera became the official presidential portrait. A color image from that same reshoot, showing Kennedy in a leather armchair with the American flag behind him, was also widely distributed. Both of these Bachrach photos appeared on memorial materials following the assassination. -- Stephen Fagin, Curator