"The Coconut" oil painting by Tansill Stough-Anthony

Object number2018.063.0004

Datecirca 2010

ClassificationsArt

Artist Tansill Stough-Anthony

ObjectArtwork

Credit LineThe "Fading Memories: In Honor of JFK" Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 12 × 12 × 1 1/2 in. (30.5 × 30.5 × 3.8 cm)

Terms

Collections

Description"The Coconut" is an oil painting by Tansill Stough-Anthony in a series titled “Fading Memories: In Honor of JFK”. The painting depicts a black and white image of the coconut Kennedy used to send a distress message after the sinking of his PT-109 boat during World War II. It is shown resting on the President's desk in the Oval Office. The artist signed the painting in the bottom right corner.

Curatorial Commentary

Having completed four paintings inspired by photographs from the Kennedy funeral, artist Tansill Stough-Anthony took a different approach by next depicting a famous object that was prominently displayed on the Resolute desk in the Oval Office during the Kennedy years. As Stough-Anthony read and learned more about President Kennedy and the Kennedy family, she was struck by the story of Kennedy's heroism following the sinking of PT-109. As she explained in her 2015 oral history, "The world made him, and the universe and God and everything put him together to be in a certain spot. I truly believe that after reading about his boat capsizing and then the coconut, where he sent that. All these little things fit together, and you can see that it made him into the person that he became and what he stood for." This painting is unique as the only one in the series in the Museum's Collection that is not specifically connected to the weekend of the assassination. -- Stephen Fagin, Curator