/internal/media/dispatcher/76237/fullGage Mace Oral History11/16/2023Duration: 35 MinutesBorn digital (.m2ts file)Oral History Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza2023.001.00700Videotaped oral history interview with Gage Mace. An artist in Portland, Oregon, Mace responded to the Kennedy assassination in the early 1990s by painting a life-size triptych inspired by the Zapruder film. As a ten-year-old, Mace briefly saw President Kennedy in the lobby of the Beverly Hilton Hotel on August 19, 1962. He was deeply impacted by the assassination the following year.
Interview conducted at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza on November 16, 2023 by Stephen Fagin. The interview is thirty-five minutes long.Oral Histories726790E-100E-1073983Oral history0E-10Videotaped oral history interview with Gage Mace. An artist in Portland, Oregon, Mace responded to the Kennedy assassination in the early 1990s by painting a life-size triptych inspired by the Zapruder film. As a ten-year-old, Mace briefly saw President Kennedy in the lobby of the Beverly Hilton Hotel on August 19, 1962. He was deeply impacted by the assassination the following year.
Interview conducted at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza on November 16, 2023 by Stephen Fagin. The interview is thirty-five minutes long.Oral histories"The Sixth Floor"AssassinationSpace RaceMoonKennedy supporterDonationArtwork1960 presidential electionStudentYouthKennedy, John F.DallasBeverly HillsLos AngelesPortlandAuthors, Filmmakers, and Researchers (OHC)Popular Culture (OHC)Artists (OHC)Childhood Recollections (OHC)Dallas and 1960s History and Culture (OHC)I first met Gage Mace in 2020, though unlike most oral history subjects who might reach out to me once or twice following their recordings, Gage has kept in relatively frequent contact with me over the last five years, becoming a great friend of the Museum in the process. When he was last here for a public program in August 2025, I joked that he was the only individual to have achieved EGOT status in our Oral History Project. EGOT, which stands for Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony, was an acronym coined in 1984 to describe an individual who had accomplished the extremely rare feat of winning all four of the major performing arts awards in the United States. Gage Mace became the EGOT of the Oral History Project by participating in each of the available recording formats used by the project (and all within a five-year period). Gage recorded a telephone interview (2020), a Zoom recording (2021), a one-on-one onsite interview in our studio space (2023 - this recording), and a Living History public program (2025). In the thirty-six-year history of the Oral History Project, no one else has managed to do that. - Stephen Fagin, CuratorOn April 8, 2021 Gage Mace participated in a virtual program with the Museum where he discussed his memories of John F. Kennedy and how they influenced his relationship with art. He took a deep dive into the inspiration and methods that went into his painting, The Assassination of President Kennedy (1992-1996). Mace donated the triptych to the museum in 2020. More information about the painting can be found in the Museum's online collections database: https://emuseum.jfk.org/objects/69813.
The 2021 virtual program, "A Virtual Artist Conversation" can be found on our YouTube page here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XnBIik5x1s. - Riley Harris, Collections Cataloger
Gage Mace has produced several captivating artworks, primarily using acrylic paint. He has explored figure studies, portraiture, landscapes, jazz scenes among other subjects. Aside from the current art classes he teaches, he worked at the Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon where his artwork has been exhibited in the rental sales gallery for over twenty-five years. More information on his portfolio and career can be found on his website here: https://gagemace.net/home.html. - Riley Harris, Collections Cataloger