"John Glenn"
Object number2011.034.0041
Date1968 - 1985
ClassificationsArt
Artist
Bernadine Stetzel
ObjectArtwork
Credit LineBernadine Stetzel Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions34 x 24 in. (86.4 x 61 cm)
DescriptionOil painting on canvas created by artist Bernadine Stetzel showing John Glenn addressing a crowd after receiving NASA's Distinguished Service Medal.
Artist Stetzel described this piece as follows: "John Glenn addresses the crowd gathered to see him honored by NASA's Distinguished Service Medal. After he made his historic flight around the earth."
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: NASA astronaut, and later Ohio senator, John Glenn and his wife Annie are longtime friends of Bernadine Stetzel and own several of her works. Since the Glenns were also close to the Kennedy family, it was natural for Stetzel to include this painting in her Kennedy series, depicting the president’s presentation of NASA's Distinguished Service Award Medal to Glenn on February 23, 1962. Three days earlier, the Mercury astronaut had become the first American to orbit the Earth.
