The art exhibit, drawn from local public and private collections, was a big deal for Fort Worth collectors.
It served to show "hospitality to weary travelers, to show off cultural competency on the part of the collectors, and to put Fort Worth a notch ahead of its rival sister city, Dallas, where the president was headed next," writes Wake Forest University art historian David Lubin, author of "Shooting Kennedy: JFK and the Culture of Images."
All anyone remembers, however, is what happened the next day, on November 22, 1963, when Kennedy flew to Dallas and was assassinated while driving in a parade.
Now, 50 years after Kennedy's death, the Dallas Museum of Art has gathered the artwork from the president's suite for an exhibition running through September 15.