Incollect Magazine - Issue 2

Issue 2 92 www.incollect.com WINTERTHUR PRIMER I n February of 1961, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy invited Winterthur Museum founder Henry Francis du Pont to act as the chairman of her Fine Arts Committee, a group that would help guide her project to restore the White House. On May 8, 1961, Mrs. Kennedy visited du Pont at Winterthur where he and senior curator John Sweeney introduced her to Winterthur’s collection and interiors (Fig. 1). In a letter dated May 9, Mrs. Kennedy wrote to Mr. and Mrs. du Pont to thank them for her visit: “All I can say is I will never recover from it—or forget one tiny detail. I just can’t believe that it was possible for anyone to ever do such a thing. Mr. du Pont you now have me in such a state of awe and reverence I may never be able to write you a letter again!” 1 Despite this sentiment, the young first lady and du Pont exchanged many letters over the course of the next several years as they worked together to restore and furnish the White House with objects of historic significance. Mrs. Kennedy, whose visit to the White House as a child had left her with a far less favorable impression of it than the one she had of Designing History at Winterthur and the White House by Kim Collison Fig. 1: First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy was photographed on the Montmorenci stairs at Winterthur when she visited on May 8, 1961. Robert Hunt Whitten, photographer; Action Photo. Courtesy, the Winterthur Library: Winterthur Archives.