"The Assassination"
Object number2011.034.0060
Date1968 - 1985
ClassificationsArt
Artist
Bernadine Stetzel
ObjectArtwork
Credit LineBernadine Stetzel Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions16 x 20 in. (40.6 x 50.8 cm)
Collections
DescriptionOil painting on canvas created by artist Bernadine Stetzel portraying the assassination of President Kennedy.
Artist Stetzel described this piece as follows: "Immediately after the shooting President Kennedy slumped over in the backseat. Secret Service agent Clinton Hill leaped onto the bumper then into the car."
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 CommentaryThe only painting in the series to depict the actual assassination, Stetzel based this work on the widely distributed black and white Associated Press photograph snapped in Dealey Plaza by eyewitness James Altgens. The camera used by Altgens to take this famous photograph is on display at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. – Stephen Fagin, Associate Curator
Exhibit label: The immediate aftermath of the Kennedy assassination is portrayed in this painting based on a widely-distributed Associated Press photograph taken by Jim Altgens in Dealey Plaza. Stetzel had a premonition that President Kennedy would die in office. She recalled, “I used to say to myself, well, we’ve had him this long, I wonder how much longer we can have him? But I always had that feeling that he wasn’t going to live out his term.”
