"JFK and RFK"
Object number2011.034.0025
Date1968 - 1985
ClassificationsArt
Artist
Bernadine Stetzel
ObjectArtwork
Credit LineBernadine Stetzel Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions50 x 26 in. (127 x 66 cm)
DescriptionOil painting on canvas created by artist Bernadine Stetzel that shows President Kennedy walking with his brother Robert.
Artist Stetzel described this piece as follows: "John F. Kennedy and his younger brother Robert F. Kennedy who served as the President's Attorney General, are seen walking from the Capitol Building."
An enthusiastic supporter of John F. Kennedy, Stetzel was devastated by the assassination. Shortly after visiting the president’s gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery in 1968, she began work on a series of paintings that depicted the life of the late president. Between 1968 and 1985, with a long break in the middle, Bernadine Stetzel created 71 works that followed John F. Kennedy from his christening ceremony to the eternal flame at his gravesite.
Curatorial CommentaryExhibit label: Here Bernadine Stetzel interprets a famous photograph taken by Cecil Stoughton during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. It depicts President John Kennedy with his brother Attorney General Robert Kennedy, walking along the White House portico.
This painting is loosely inspired by an image of President Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, conferring in the West Wing Colonnade at the White House on October 3, 1962. Taken by White House photographer Cecil Stoughton, the photograph shows the Kennedy brothers less than two weeks before the thirteen days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. – Stephen Fagin, Associate Curator
