Seventh Floor Museum exhibit captures attention
Nearly everyone knows of Dallas’ Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza which chronicles the life, times, death and legacy of President John F. Kennedy. However, very few know about the Seventh Floor.
The Seventh Floor Museum has the largest and most comprehensive exhibition of Pulitzer prize-winning photographs ever shown in the United States.
“The Pulitzer Prize Photographs: Capture the Moment” is the inaugural exhibit for the Museum’s new seventh floor expansion, as part of a national tour of these photographs.
“It seems fitting to introduce the Seventh Floor with a powerful exhibition like ‘Capture the Moment.’ The Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs depict the events and issues that made the nation reflect and respond” said Jeff West, executive director of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. “It’s the news of our era – moments of great pride and scenes of deep despair. The recollection of these moments is made richer at this historic site.”
The collection features 120 photographs in color and black and white, including six by Texas photojournalists. First seen in newspapers, many of these images proved influential in times of crises and stirred the nation to action. The photographs range in date from 1941, the year of the first photography Pulitzer, to the present. Included are several photographs of the World Trade Center tragedy. Viewers are struck not only by the context of the photographs but by their sizes, which are as big as four feet by three feet wide.
“The photographs were so heart wrenching,” junior Lauren Bradley said. “They were impressive photos, I remember them being in the news and others in my history books.”
The exhibit was developed by the Newseum, the interactive museum of news, located in Arlington, Va. The exhibit includes several instantly recognizable images. Among them are Joe Rosenthal’s World War II photograph of the raising of the flag over Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima (1945 Pulitzer) and Robert H. Jackson’s photograph of Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald (1964 Pulitzer). Recent photographs chronicle events such as the Oklahoma City bombing, the attack at Columbine High School and the seizure of Elian Gonzalez are on display as well.
The exhibit catalog features biographies of the prize-winning photographers as well as interviews with many surviving photographers as you enter the theater on the seventh floor. The exhibition, scheduled to close in September, has been extended due to popularity. The museum is open to the public from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. daily. This exhibit is open through Dec. 8.
